On Monday, pharmacies tend to close if a pharmacist who was arrested 24 hours ago is not released.
The head of the Pharmacists Syndicate, Dr. Joe Salloum, explained in a call with “Lebanon Debate”, that “the security forces arrested a pharmacist because of the presence of expired medicines in his pharmacy 24 hours ago.”
And about the reasons for the existence of expired drugs, and is it related to monopoly? Salloum denies this, and confirms that “the problem started two years ago when the importing companies stopped recovering the expired medicine, because pharmacies cannot damage it, but rather the company is the one who retrieves it and returns it to the supplier company to destroy it abroad and not in Lebanon because the matter entails several risks?
He stresses that “the continuation of expired medicines is a very dangerous matter that must be found quickly.”
Salloum calls for the immediate release of “the arrested pharmacist because he has no guilt that the companies do not recover these medicines,” and warns that “the syndicate is heading to escalate and has announced a strike next Monday if the pharmacist’s detention continues.”