Medications of millions of lei kept in insanitary conditions in Chisinau store

Anti-corruption officers discovered Chinese and Indian medications to the value of 3 million lei kept in insanitary conditions in a storehouse of a Chisinau company. The drugs were to be distributed to Moldovan hospitals for treating bronchitis, pneumonia and other diseases, Iurie Ciorba, division head at the Center for Combating Corruption and Economic Crime, told a news conference on March 22. The investigators established that medications of 20 million lei have been brought and kept for a period in the storehouse since 2006 until present. The owner of the store has registered his company in an offshore zone. If found guilty, he will be fined 20,000 to 60,000 lei. “The Medication Agency is to blame in this case. The officials in charge issued the authorization allowing selling the drugs without waiting for certain results (of the laboratory examination of the medications – e.n.),” said Iurie Ciorba. He also said that the Drugs Quality Control Laboratory of the Medication Agency issued quality certificates ignoring the fact that the drugs were kept in insanitary conditions. The medications found in the store are not used in the EU, but in poorly developed countries from Middle East and South Africa. A number of 122 economic entities working in Moldova are authorized to import drugs, but only 70 of them do it.