Good news from the Minister of Health to the Lebanese… What did he say?

In an interview with the “Lebanon in a Week” program prepared and presented by our colleague Natalie Issa, Minister of Public Health, Firas Al-Abyad, confirmed on “Radio Lebanon”, that “the health of the citizen and the country as a whole is covered by a black cloud, and all of us, as a government or citizens, must work to overcome the current crisis well.”

In response to a question about Capital Control, which was approved in the last cabinet session, he said: “It is natural that not everyone agrees on all points, but the most important thing is what Prime Minister Najib Mikati said about the need to stay away from the discussion on the impact of electoral campaigns. We are in an election stage, What is required is to stay away from populism, and have a little sense of responsibility because I don’t think the solution is easy at the present time.”

Al-Abyadh confirmed that “the law has undergone some amendments in the cabinet,” and added: “I, as a minister, have every confidence in the Deputy Prime Minister, His Excellency Al-Shami, and the Minister of Finance, Youssef Khalil, so we agreed on it as it is, provided that it is discussed in the House of Representatives.”

Regarding the negotiations with the IMF, Al-Abyad said: “They are in an advanced stage,” referring to the visit to Qatar, in which he was accompanied by President Mikati, where he had a meeting with the Vice President of the Fund, during which she was completely positive, stressing that “everyone agreed on the necessity of success, Simply because we need money to get up and move forward with the recovery plan, because the lack of liquidity greatly affects all files.”

He continued, “It is natural that conditions will be difficult because the money will be loans, and Lebanon must carry out the required reforms and implement the conditions set, but with stressing the importance of the Fund’s interest in protecting the basic sectors of health, education and others.”

Regarding the new drug policy, he said: “The drug file in Lebanon is complicated because many things are intertwined, on the one hand, some related to support and others are related to import, and some companies refuse to provide us with medicine due to payment arrears.”

Al-Abyadh stressed that there is another problem related to the chaos in demand, explaining that “the focus was on the local drug industry, most of which is related to medicines for chronic diseases and others, and we found that the problem is that we need local manufacturers to support raw materials, so the decision was to move from subsidy fragmentation, and savings from import subsidies. , to support the local industry,” he said: “For every dollar we give to the local industry, we save at least two dollars in imports.”

Ban stated, “There is no support for the imported drug, which has a local alternative, provided that support for the drug that is unparalleled locally will continue.”

Regarding Corona, the White Minister announced that the numbers are “decreasing”, declaring that “next Monday, he will hold a press conference during which he will announce the new procedures and strategy in the next stage,” noting that “the trend is towards easing the procedures,” and he said: “It is possible to dispense with the muzzle in the coming period.” Public places not crowded or closed.