Lebanon lacked nothing but the contamination of children’s anticancer drugs. This news, confirmed by the World Health Organization, highlights the total lack of control and great contempt even for the health of sick children.
The World Health Organization has issued a warning regarding the presence of a contaminated batch of METHOTREX 50 mg in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region.
The organization said in a statement that the contaminated batch was found in Yemen and Lebanon after adverse effects appeared on sick children receiving the medicine, indicating that health authorities in the two countries conducted microbiological tests on the remaining sealed vials and on the test results revealed the presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria, which is evidence of product contamination.
The head of the parliamentary health committee, Dr. Bilal Abdullah, confirms that the matter is under consideration and the Ministry of Health has started the necessary investigations.
He underlined that, under the pretext of a shortage of medicines, drugs are smuggled, above all because a patient forced to take a medicine cannot be prevented from buying a medicine that we do not know if it is contaminated or not. Stresses that the funds allocated for anticancer drugs are not enough.
However, he stresses the need for more control over this drug in hospitals where patients bring the contraband medicine, explaining that the medicine that arrives through the agent is the guaranteed medicine.
And he talks about the reasons for the unavailability of medicines, due to debts accumulated in the millions with supplier companies, which the State is unable to pay, in addition to the problems of opening credits again with the Banque du Liban.
