الجيش في الاول من آب هو دائماً الاول في ” شرف “حماية لينان ونظامه الديمقراطي، الاول في “التضحية”والتصدي للارهاب ومناهضة العنصرية والتعصب، …

By Najia Houssari - arabnews.com -- BEIRUT: A Lebanese child, Zahra Tleis, died on Friday, after being stung by a scorpion, and her family being unable to find an antidote to treat her, due to medicine shortages in the country. Some vital medicines can only now be found on the black market, but are sold at exorbitant prices. The director of Rafik Hariri Governmental Hospital, Dr. Firas Abiad, said “unfortunately, losing patients due to medicine shortages will become more common.” The head of the National Health Authority, Ismail Sukkarieh, revealed to Arab News that even treatments for dog bites were missing from shelves. “Such injections should be be available in large quantities in hospitals, and especially governmental hospitals, but have gone missing due to negligence and the medicine crisis.” Sukkariyeh said the Lebanese people “are paying the price for the irresponsibility of officials and the accumulation of ill-conceived, corrupt and scandalous policies.” He warned that the country will completely collapse if the situation persists.

Lebanon has been facing an economic collapse since 2019, described by the World Bank as “one of the world’s worst crises since the 1850s.” More than half of the population now lives under the poverty line as the local currency, the lira, has lost over 90 percent of its value against the US dollar. With the depletion of foreign currency reserves at the Lebanese central bank, the Banque du Liban (BDL) and delays in opening lines of credits for imports, the health sector has been facing increasing pressure and fuel shortages. The country’s electricity company, Electricité du Liban (EDL) has also been unable to provide power due to fuel shortages, and some regions have had to ration electricity for 22 hours a day. Owners of private generators have also been affected by the diesel and fuel crisis, and have resorted to rationing as well.

by uk.news.yahoo.com -- Forget packing clothes, perfume, sweets and the other usual gifts. As Lebanon experiences a severe shortage of medication, many Lebanese expats going home for summer vacation are packing their suitcases full of medicine for their families and friends. Lebanon is still in the throes of an economic crisis, marked by the extreme devaluation of the Lebanese pound, which has led to unrest and shortages of essential goods. With pharmaceutical importers in debt to suppliers abroad and unable to open new lines of credit from the Bank of Lebanon, drug imports have been halted for more than a month. In protest of the shortages, a pharmacist association organised a nationwide general strike for several days in early July. To help alleviate the strain on their families and friends, Lebanese expats returning home for the summer have packed their suitcases with out-of-stock goods: essential medicines, first-aid supplies and even sanitary pads, as shown in photos posted on social networks.

Paulina Queralt, a singer living in France, made a call on social media asking any Lebanese expats heading to Beirut to take along a suitcase of medicine she prepared for a relative who was hospitalised after an accident. “I’m ready to pay for an extra suitcase,” she wrote in this tweet. However, Beirut-based journalist Anaïs Renevier warned expats against sending expired medications to clinics in Lebanon, saying: “Here, medicines are not recycled. This will create additional pollution.” ‘I had to bring three months’ worth of diabetes medication for my mother’ Jessy El Murr lives in the United Arab Emirates and travelled to Lebanon on July 20. The past few weeks, videos showing protesters breaking into warehouses filled with boxes of medication have been circulating on social media. The video below, posted on YouTube on July 7, shows activists in a medication warehouse in Tripoli, in northern Lebanon. They said they discovered boxes of medications – blood pressure pills, anti-inflammatory drugs and fever and cough medicines – that were out of stock at pharmacies. ‘In Lebanon, everything is in short supply: I even sent baby diapers and pacifiers’ Rima Tarabay, a psychologist, has started a solidarity drive initiative from Paris.

by thenationalnews.com -- Joyce Karam -- The US is considering a broad set of options to respond to the unprecedented crisis in Lebanon, including sanctions on corrupt figures, sending cash and non-perishable aid to the Lebanese Army and directing humanitarian assistance to non-governmental organisations. In a joint statement released on Friday by the US Secretaries of State and Treasury, Antony Blinken and Janet Yellen, the Biden administration welcomed the EU's adoption of a new sanctions regime. "As an increasing number of Lebanese suffer from the country’s worsening economic crisis, it is critical that Lebanese leaders heed their people’s repeated calls for an end to widespread corruption and government inaction and form a government that can initiate the reforms critical to address the country’s dire situation," the joint statement read. "The United States looks forward to future co-operation with the EU in our shared efforts."

On Friday, the EU announced it had adopted a framework for sanctions that would focus on corrupt figures and “persons and entities who are responsible for undermining democracy or the rule of law” in Lebanon. With Lebanon experiencing a power vacuum, rampant fuel and medicine shortages, and with the local currency in a free fall, President Joe Biden's administration finds itself forced to think outside the box to manage the situation and prevent the country from becoming a failed state. The threat of sanctions, one Arab diplomatic source said, is aimed at both speeding up the government formation and showing a US-EU united front on the issue. This week, Lebanese business tycoon Najib Mikati became the third prime minister-designate to attempt to break the year-long paralysis in forming a government. US officials have dealt with Mr Mikati before, when he served as prime minister in 2005 and 2011, and are privately welcoming the pick. But publicly, the US is withholding judgment.