Lebanon Faces Medicine Shortages, Stocks Won’t Last More than a Month

A man counts US dollar banknotes next to Lebanese pounds at a currency exchange shop in Beirut, Lebanon April 24, 2020. (Reuters)
A man counts US dollar banknotes next to Lebanese pounds at a currency exchange shop in Beirut, Lebanon April 24, 2020. (Reuters)
TT

Lebanon Faces Medicine Shortages, Stocks Won’t Last More than a Month

A man counts US dollar banknotes next to Lebanese pounds at a currency exchange shop in Beirut, Lebanon April 24, 2020. (Reuters)
A man counts US dollar banknotes next to Lebanese pounds at a currency exchange shop in Beirut, Lebanon April 24, 2020. (Reuters)

Since March, the Lebanese have been suffering from the shortage of a number of medicines, especially those for chronic diseases, for intermittent periods that used to reach 15 days.

Today, obtaining some medications requires a tour of a number of pharmacies and promises to secure them after periods that may exceed a month.

“This is due to some citizens resorting to stockpiling medicine for fear of interruption or increase of prices in the event that Lebanon’s Central Bank stops subsidizing this sector,” Mahdi, the manager of a pharmacy in Beirut, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Central Bank, which provides credit lines to importers of wheat, fuel and medicine, at the official dollar rate, which is still fixed at LBP 1,515, announced that at the end of 2020, it would no longer be able to continue to subsidize these materials in light of the shrinking reserves of foreign currencies.

Mahdi asserts that in June and July, many customers “have sought to buy stocks for a whole year.”

Some pharmacies “used to provide the patient with the quantities he requested, but the distributing companies recently determined the quantities that they give to each pharmacy based on its usual monthly need,” he noted.

The head of the Pharmacists Syndicate, Ghassan Al-Amin, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the panic caused by the Central Bank’s announcement of its inability to continue subsidizing fuel, wheat and medicine after the end of 2020 prompted the Lebanese to stockpile medications, especially since they know that lifting the subsidy means that the drug price will be linked to the dollar valuation in the black market.

The prices will increase by five, based on the current dollar exchange rate in the black market, according to Al-Amin.

He noted that the problem further worsened “with the slow import movement due to the Central Bank’s mechanism to open credit lines for importers based on the official exchange rate.”

Al-Amin stressed that the stock of medicine in warehouses, which used to last for six months, is now insufficient for more than one and a half months, warning of a real disaster that will affect the citizens after the subsidy is lifted.



Gazan Twins in Cannes Warn 'Nothing Left' of Homeland

Arab and Tarzan Nasser say their father is still in northern Gaza - AFP
Arab and Tarzan Nasser say their father is still in northern Gaza - AFP
TT

Gazan Twins in Cannes Warn 'Nothing Left' of Homeland

Arab and Tarzan Nasser say their father is still in northern Gaza - AFP
Arab and Tarzan Nasser say their father is still in northern Gaza - AFP

Twin Gazan filmmakers Arab and Tarzan Nasser said they never thought the title of their new film "Once Upon A Time In Gaza" would have such heartbreaking resonance.

"Right now there is nothing left of Gaza," Tarzan said when it premiered Monday at the Cannes film festival.

Since militants from the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has ravaged large swathes of the Palestinian territory and killed tens of thousands of people.

Israel has vowed to "take control of all" the besieged territory of more than two million inhabitants, where United Nations agencies have warned of famine following Israel's implementation of a two-month total blockade.

Aid started to trickle into the Gaza Strip on Monday, following widespread condemnation of the siege.

The Nasser brothers, who left Gaza in 2012, said their new film set in 2007, when Hamas seized control of the strip, explains the lead-up to today's catastrophic war.

"Once Upon A Time In Gaza", which screened in the festival's Un Certain Regard section, follows friends Yahia and Osama as they try to make a little extra cash by selling drugs stuffed into falafel sandwiches.

Using a manual meat grinder that does not rely on rare electricity, student Yahia blends up fava beans and fresh herbs to make the patty-shaped fritters in the back of Osama's small run-down eatery, while dreaming of being able to leave the Israeli-blockaded coastal strip.

Charismatic hustler Osama meanwhile visits pharmacy after pharmacy to amass as many pills as he can with stolen prescriptions, pursued by a corrupt cop.

-'Human beings'-

Israel first imposed a blockade on Gaza in June 2006 after militants there took one of its soldiers, and reinforced it in September 2007 several months after Hamas took power.

"The blockade was gradually tightened, tightened until reaching the genocide we see today," Tarzan said.

"Until today they are counting the calories that enter," he added.

An Israeli NGO said in 2012 that documents showed Israeli authorities had calculated that 2,279 calories per person per day was deemed sufficient to prevent malnutrition in Gaza.

The defense ministry however claimed it had "never counted calories" when allowing aid in.

Despite all this, Gazans have always shown a love of life and been incredibly resilient, the directors said.

"My father is until now in northern Gaza," Tarzan said, adding that the family's two homes had been destroyed.

But before then, "every time a missile hit, damaging a wall or window, he'd fix it up the next day", he said.

In films, "the last thing I want to do is talk about Israel and what it's doing", he added.

"Human beings are more important -- who they are, how they're living and adapting to this really tough reality."

In their previous films, the Nasser twins followed an elderly fisherman enamoured with his neighbour in the market in "Gaza Mon Amour" and filmed women trapped at a hairdresser's in "Degrade" from 2015.

Like "Once Upon A Time in Gaza", they were all shot in Jordan.

- 'Gaza was a riviera' -

As the siege takes its toll in "Once Upon A Time In Gaza", a desolate Yahia is recruited to star in a Hamas propaganda film.

In Gaza, "we don't have special effects but we do have live bullets", the producer says in one scene.

"Once Upon A Time In Gaza" has received good reviews, with Screen Daily saying the "taut, succinct film should win widespread attention".

Arab said that long before Gazan tap water became salty and US President Donald Trump sparked controversy by saying he wanted to turn their land into the "Riviera of the Middle East", the coastal strip was a happy place.

"I remember when I was little, Gaza actually was a riviera. It was the most beautiful place. I can still taste the fresh water on my tongue," he said.

"Now Trump comes up with this great invention that he wants to turn it into a riviera, after Israel completely destroyed it?"

Gaza health authorities said at least 44 people were killed there in the early hours of Tuesday.