Politics

Kurdistan shuts down 13 pharmacies, stores for hiking face mask prices

The Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Health on Saturday announced that one of its mobile teams had closed a number of medical stores and pharmacies in Erbil for "manipulating" the prices of highly sought-after medical products, including face masks as demand dramatically rose for them in response to the worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus that began in China.

Sangar Ali 2020/02/23 09:14

kurdistan Kurdistan Iraq Coronavirus Erbil

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Health on Saturday announced that one of its mobile teams had closed a number of medical stores and pharmacies in Erbil for "manipulating" the prices of highly sought-after medical products, including face masks as demand dramatically rose for them in response to the worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus that began in China.

The team has closed “twelve medical stores and one pharmacy,” said the ministry, for increasing prices and manipulating medical supplies in the capital of the Kurdistan Region.

The announcement also mentions that the team will continue to check prices in pharmacies and medical centers to prevent such manipulation and called on the general public to report any pharmacies or medical stores that are seen not adhering to official local prices set for medicines and medical needs.

This comes after the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has been confirmed to have killed five people in neighboring Iran. The total number of confirmed infections in Iran has reached to 28 cases, according to the state media.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has taken precautionary measures on its borders with Iran to prevent the coronavirus from entering the Kurdistan Region that includes a temporary ban on Iranian tourists.

According to the latest figures by the World Health Organization (WHO), the contagious disease that Chinese health authorities first became aware of in late December in the seaside city of Wuhan has so far killed over 2,000 people in China and has infected a total of more than 75,000 worldwide.

On Feb. 12, Kurdish police announced that they had closed 56 drug stores, pharmacies, and clinics in the province of Erbil since the beginning of 2019 for violating various laws and instructions issued by the local government.

Police specified that they had punished the owners of pharmacies and drug stores, fined them a total of IQD 90 million (just over $75,000), and destroyed six tons of medicines which were expired or had been illegally smuggled to the Kurdistan Region.

Editing by John J. Catherine