Lebanon medicine importers warn imported drugs running out

Lebanese grappling with a raft of shortages, from petrol to medication, as caretaker gov’t discusses lifting subsidies.

Lebanon’s medicine importers said they had run out of hundreds of essential drugs and warned of further shortages if the cash-strapped central bank did not unblock funds. Lebanese are grappling with a raft of shortages, from petrol to medication, as the caretaker government discusses lifting subsidies it can no longer afford amid what the World Bank says is one of the world’s worst financial crises since the 1850s. The local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market, but the central bank had been providing importers with dollars at the much more favourable official rate to cover a large part of the cost of imported drugs.