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The drug crisis has expanded in Lebanon, threatening the lives of patients, especially those suffering from heart disease, due to the deterioration of the health of some of them as they are forced to stop taking a series of drugs intended for them for lack of pharmacies.
The head of the emergency department at Hariri Hospital, Dr. Nabil Shasha, warned of the consequences of losing medications in general, especially those intended for heart patients, noting in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that this month has seen an increase in the 40 percent in the number of emergency reviews. From patients with heart failure and other complications, unlike last month. He explained that a large number of these patients used to assure that they would stop taking their medications because they were missing from the market and that he could not find a way to secure them.
Heart patients in Lebanon complain of losing mainly two types of drugs, namely: «Lasix», which is a drug manufactured locally under a license from a French laboratory, and has an alternative (Generic), but the alternative is also missing in the market; And “Centrum”, and there is no alternative in Lebanon.
Shasha, a cardiologist, points to the danger that patients who need these drugs for days will stop taking them, as stopping them exposes them, for example, to stop taking Lasix due to lung congestion and an acute lung crisis. As for stopping Centrum, it can expose heart patients who put a metal valve to strokes.
Shasha points out that these drugs are cheap, which means that they are easier than others in terms of securing the import bill for importing companies, adding that if the reason for losing them is the difficulty of securing the dollar, it is necessary for importers prioritize one medication at the expense of another, and focus on those medications that the patient cannot stop taking, that has no alternative (such as Generic), with the assurance that in the original there should be no problems that lead to the loss of any type of drug from pharmacies.
The loss of these particular drugs has led some doctors and observers to talk about the intention of some importers to stop importing them, because they are cheap. That is, it is not profitable for merchants, but the head of the Pharmacists’ Union, Ghassan Al-Amin, denied this issue, considering in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that the doctor is the one who controls the bill for medicines in Lebanon, “He only has the right to place a poster on the prescription of drugs that prevents the pharmacist from giving the patient any other alternative medicine; In other words, the pharmacist in most cases cannot substitute the medicine prescribed by the doctor for a cheaper or more expensive medicine ”, in addition to the fact that the prices of these medicines are at the price of many other medicines.
Al-Amin recalls that Lebanon does not import enough “generic”, and the adoption of “generic” in drug policy takes years, starting with determining the country of import and companies, studying the feasibility and registering the drug and ending with your marketing. Al-Amin reiterated that the reasons for the interruption of drugs, in addition to the delay in the approval of appropriations by the Central Bank, the problem of the shortage of the dollar, the desire of citizens in recent months to store drugs , including heart medications currently lost, for fear of removing their subsidies, and hence their prices, in addition to the smuggling that is active. The fact that the price of drugs in Lebanon, which is sold in Lebanese pounds, has become the cheapest in the region, after the pound lost more than 70 percent of its value against the dollar.
Al-Amin assured that (lasix) will be available in the market next week, and that many imported drugs, including drugs for lost heart, will return to the market soon, especially with the recent drop in the dollar exchange rate in the market. black, which means easier to insure it to importers. .
Lebanon has been going through a drug shortage crisis for months that has recently reached the point of discontinuing a large number of drugs, especially those for chronic diseases and nerve diseases, as well as certain types of headache drugs.
Lebanon was recently frustrated by drug smuggling abroad. The Health Ministry had also closed a number of pharmacies and targeted warehouses that stored drugs to smuggle or sell for double the price.
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