Caretaker Lebanese Minister of Health Firas Abiad. (Credit: Dalati and Nohra)
BEIRUT — Lebanon's caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad announced on Friday a donation of 6,830 capsules of the drug Navelbine, used to treat breast and lung cancer, offered by French pharmaceutical group Pierre Fabre.
Welcoming this "humanitarian initiative,'' Abiad assured that his ministry "works to ensure that the drugs are made available to patients, especially those suffering from cancer," according to comments reported by the National News Agency.
For his part, Naim Hanna, CEO of the Pierre Fabre Group, said that the donation "will soon arrive in Lebanon and will be distributed in specified quantities to the Ministry of Health, the Civil Servants' Cooperative, the army, the Internal Security Forces, the General Security and the Hotel-Dieu de France Hospital.
The drugs will be offered free of charge to people suffering from cancer, he stated.
Since the beginning of the economic crisis in Lebanon, cancer patients have been struggling to get adequate treatment. Out-of-reach care, out-of-stock drugs, and lack of health coverage are some of the many challenges the people are facing, while the state, in the midst of a collapse, has not been able to allocate a sufficient budget to import the necessary drugs.