Heart drugs and all kinds of other medicines have disappeared from drug stores across Lebanon.The drug shortage is the latest in a series of problems in the country, which was once a center for medical services, banking and real estate.Rita Harb works as a nurse at a hospital in Beirut, the capital. She cannot find heart drugs for her 85-year-old grandfather.She has searched Lebanese drug stores and called friends overseas. Not even doctors she knew could get the drugs from pharmacies or other providers.Harb’s story is becoming increasingly common in Lebanon.Officials and pharmacists say the drug shortage was made worse by panic buying and hoarding after an announcement by the country’s Central Bank governor.He said that with the supply of foreign money running low, the government would not be able to keep up subsidies, including subsidies on drugs.That announcement “caused a storm, an earthquake,” said Ghassan al-Amin, head of the Order of Pharmacists of Lebanon.
