DUBAI // More than 200 labourers - mostly gardeners - received boxes of everyday essentials last night as part of a charity drive.
Dubai Municipality workers in labour accommodation in Al Quoz queued to receive the containers as part of the Box Appeal, an initiative by Radisson Blu and Park Inn hotels in collaboration with the Red Crescent.
Each box was filled with 13 items including toothpaste, toothbrush, comb, soap, razors and a T-shirt. For many of the exhausted workers, who waited patiently to collect the necessities, it was the cap that proved most popular.
"The cap is the most helpful," said Mohammed Tanseer, a gardener with Dubai Municipality. "It will protect us from the heat when we are working in the open," said the worker from Pakistan, who earns Dh1,200 a month.
"Everything we need is there in the box. This means we can save some money this month," said Mr Tanseer, who would normally have to spend more than Dh100 to buy the items.
More than 9,000 boxes are being distributed across labour camps in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Fujairah in the next few weeks.
Over the last four years, more than 30,000 boxes - worth three million dirhams - have been donated, said hotel officials.
This year, nine UAE hotels helped in collecting the boxes from August 15 to September 30.
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US tops drug cost charts
The study of 13 essential drugs showed costs in the United States were about 300 per cent higher than the global average, followed by Germany at 126 per cent and 122 per cent in the UAE.
Thailand, Kenya and Malaysia were rated as nations with the lowest costs, about 90 per cent cheaper.
In the case of insulin, diabetic patients in the US paid five and a half times the global average, while in the UAE the costs are about 50 per cent higher than the median price of branded and generic drugs.
Some of the costliest drugs worldwide include Lipitor for high cholesterol.
The study’s price index placed the US at an exorbitant 2,170 per cent higher for Lipitor than the average global price and the UAE at the eighth spot globally with costs 252 per cent higher.
High blood pressure medication Zestril was also more than 2,680 per cent higher in the US and the UAE price was 187 per cent higher than the global price.
