Cuban Jessica Rodriguez never knows if she will find the medicines that keep her four-year-old son alive in a country that has all but run out of essential drugs. On a near daily basis she sprints from one state-run pharmacy to another on a quest for pills and syringes. Increasingly, she has to turn to the black market and pay the higher prices there. That is if they have what she needs. "Missing a dose, not having the suction tubes, a catheter that cannot be replaced... all can lead to serious illnesses which can cost him his life," the 27-year-old mother tells the AFP at her home in Havana. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES