Press Release
November 15, 2013

Koko appeals to drug firms and retail stores to send medicine for survivors

As both local and international aid pours in, Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III today appealed to pharmaceutical companies and retail drug stores to provide the lacking medicines badly needed by survivors of super typhoon Yolanda.

Pimentel said that there is an acute shortage for medicines in the worst hit provinces of Samar and Leyte and Tacloban City where hospitals and municipal health centers have stopped operations because there are no more drugs to administer on patients.

He said that drugs like insulin and other antibiotics are required to prevent the spread of disease in the face of mountains of debris and human corpses that have littered the streets and occupied the flattened communities devastated by the monster howler.

Pimentel cited the case of a mother who survived the storm but died because she failed to get medication from a hospital that ran out of medicines and still without power, five days after tragedy struck Tacloban City.

Meanwhile, Pimentel himself has transformed his office at the Senate as a relief center to accept and process goods and assistance for the ravaged cities and provinces in the Visayan region, including victims in Panay Island, Northern Cebu and Palawan.

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