Chinese Government provides $2 million grant — via WHO — for provision of medicines and medical supplies to support Syrian refugees in Lebanon

According to the WHO 2016 Annual Report, the Chinese Government provided a $2 million grant in 2014-2015 to the World Health Organization in order to supply medicines and medical supplies to Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

This aid package included a stock of non-communicable disease medications procured for the Ministry of Public Health (details of the medications procured are given in Table 3 on Page 33), and 3000 sets of personal protective equipment (including cover-all suits, N95 masks, surgical masks, impermeable boot covers, impermeable gowns, eye goggles and latex gloves).

It also involved the training of 510 health staff at hospitals and district health units and the re-training of 159 transport service staff on infection control and prevention measures in the context of Ebola virus and MERS-CoV.

The WHO supported Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health in collaboration with the Lebanese Society for Infectious Diseases, to train around 400 health staff from district health units, PHC centers and public hospitals, and 159 first responders from the Lebanese Red Cross and the armed and security forces.

Infection control teams in 45 selected hospitals were trained in infection control measures by the Order of Nurses in Lebanon in collaboration with WHO and Ministry of Public Health teams.

At a regional level, all 26 district health units were equipped with special fridges (one fridge per district) for food safety teams to store samples for food safety inspection.

A total of 10,000 brochures on the prevention and control of MERS-CoV were distributed to all 143 hospitals and more than 600 PHC centres across the country, as well as at Beirut international airport.