Caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad (center), the Advisor to the Qatari Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Mutawa (left) and the Director of the Qatar Red Crescent Mission in Lebanon, Muhammad al-Sousi (right). (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad received medicines donated by Qatar through the Qatar Red Crescent on Monday, the state-run National News Agency reported.
The donation included about 430,000 boxes of chronic disease medicines direly needed by Lebanese patients, according to the Health Ministry.
Some 70 percent of the medicines will be distributed for free via primary healthcare centers across Lebanon, while the remaining 30 percent will go to the Ministry of Interior for distribution to Internal Security Forces pharmacies, the NNA reported.
Abiad also thanked Qatar on Monday for a previous "donation of $5 million worth of diesel," to power Lebanese hospitals, adding that the Gulf country was constructing a new care building adjacent to Beirut's public Karantina Hospital.
Qatar "will do everything it can for Lebanon to recover ... and this will be strengthened during the next year," Muhammad al-Sousi, director of the Qatar Red Crescent's Lebanon mission added, according to the NNA.
Lebanon's healthcare system is crumbling amid an economic crisis ranked by the World Bank as among the world's worst since the mid-19th century.