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.

In addition to medication shortages, Lebanon has been experiencing food and fuel shortages alongside drastic power cuts for the last several months. The economic crisis in the country – which the World Bank has said is one of the world’s worst since the mid-19th century – has pushed more than half the population below the poverty line. The country has been paralysed by political crisis since former Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned after the explosion at the Port of Beirut on August 4, 2020. Ruling political parties have been unable to form a new government, despite the urgency posed by the country’s economic meltdown. Nadjib Mikati, the new prime minister appointed on July 26, has promised to work with political parties to agree on the formation of a new government.