The Lebanese Health Ministry announced on Tuesday that it has uncovered tons of medicine that have been hoarded at warehouses throughout the country amid complaints that pharmacies have been running out of goods.
Lebanon is grappling with a raft of shortages due to what the World Bank has termed one of the world’s worst financial crises since the 1850s.
Lebanon’s foreign currency reserves are fast depleting and the cash-strapped state has started to gradually reduce subsidies on key imports including fuel and flour.
Medicine importers say hundreds of drugs have disappeared from the market, as the central bank owes suppliers abroad millions of dollars and they can no longer open new lines of credit.
For its part, the government accuses importers of hoarding medicine with the aim of selling it at a higher price once medicine subsidies are reduced by the state and drugs become more expensive.
With security backup, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan led raids at several warehouses. Video showed aisles of medicine stored at the locations.
The hoarders have reportedly been referred to the judiciary.
Hassan’s raid revealed that tons of medicine that have been reported missing in the market for months were actually being stored at the warehouses. Among them are life-saving drugs, antibodies and baby milk.
In a statement, the minister urged the hoarders to send their cache to pharmacies, warning that they will be held accountable for their actions.
Head of the pharmacists’ syndicate, Ghassan Al-Amin welcomed the minister’s move, but said it will not resolve the medicine crisis.
“The minister’s move is excellent and he must keep up his work,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
“We are in constant contact with the Health Ministry, but even if the hoarded medicine is sold in the market, the crisis will not be resolved because its root problem has not been addressed,” he explained.
The minister’s move will “win the market a week at most and then we will return to the same problem,” he added.
He explained that companies have not been able to import medicine for three months because of a failure to open new lines of credit.
The caches were discovered in warehouses on the Chouf coast south of Beirut, al-Zahrani and Nabatiyeh in the South, and Jadra in Mount Lebanon.
Hassan said Tuesday that the confiscated medicine in the Chouf area will be handed out by his ministry to the people free of charge.
“Hoarders and importers are adopting a mafia-like and criminal mentality,” the minister, describing the discovered caches as a “resounding scandal”.
