Lebanon’s Minister of Health, Firas Abiad, has said that the government’s subsidy of drugs for cancer and incurable diseases would continue.

His comments came amid fears of lack of the necessary financing after the end of the term of the Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, and the refusal of his deputy, Wassim Mansouri, to transfer the needed amounts from the bank’s reserves, with the lack of the proper legal mechanisms.

Abiad was speaking following a meeting on Monday, which was held in the presence of Prime Minister Najib Mikati and members of the parliamentary health committee, to discuss the heath situation in the country.

The minister said that Mikati briefed the participants on the solutions which the government is seeking to implement to continue to subsidize medicines for cancer and incurable diseases, whether by resorting to the IMF or to other resources in US dollars.

In this context, MP Bilal Abdallah told Asharq Al-Awsat that the health ministry was deploying all efforts to implement new solutions in order to secure the necessary funding for the drugs subsidies.

“There are around 4,000 patients who need these medicines, and we cannot leave them hostages to political bickering,” he stated, noting that this file was the ministry’s utmost priority.