Lebanese Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hasan went ahead with the ministry’s efforts to stop monopolization of medicine across the country.
Hasan took to Twitter Tuesday to warn medicine warehouses’ owners against hoarding drugs.
“To the warehouses now smuggling medicines to destinations that are known by the [competent] apparatuses, I advise you to distribute your stock to pharmacies. The electronic tracking system is highly accurate. You will have to show the invoices duly and you will subject yourself to the what perpetrators faced last night,” Hasan tweeted.
Since Monday, Minister Hasan raided at least three warehouses storing large quantities of drugs.
The facilities, located in Jadra, Ghzeieh and Toul, contained a variety of drugs whose prices went up after the partial subsidy lifting, all of which had been bought and stored when the Central Bank of Lebanon was still subsidizing drugs at the official exchange rate of LBP 1,500/$1.
The raid also uncovered drugs used in the treatment of incurable and chronic illnesses.
Caretaker Minister Hasan revealed during the operation that two monopolizers had been detained, emphasizing that all perpetrators must be detained and their institutions opened to sell medicine to the public.
Hasan expressed regret for what he described as “a criminal mafia mind that controls monopolists and opportunists,” stressing that the drugs that are being found hidden in warehouses are “a valuable catch” and “an echoing scandal.”
Some of the warehouses, Hasan noted, lacked the optimal conditions for the preservation of the drugs’ effectiveness.
All drugs found in the raided warehouses have been confiscated to be redistributed, based on a judicial notice.
Source: Lebanese media
