Coronavirus: 5 medical stores license cancelled for selling masks, sanitisers at inflated rates

Ghaziabad: The licences of five medical stores here have been cancelled after they were found to be selling hand sanitisers and face masks at inflated rates in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic scare, officials said.

The drug department conducted raids on a number of retail and wholesale medical stores in the district following several complaints of black marketing of precautionary equipment to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 infection, such as masks and sanitisers, they said.

Raids were conducted under the aegis of additional city magistrate (ACM) upon the instruction of the district magistrate (DM).

District Magistrate Ajay Shanker Pandey said the ACM himself went to the medical stores and bought face masks and sanitisers when he found that the store owners charged exorbitant prices of these two items and refused to provide bills for the purchase.

Licences of five medical stores have been cancelled for selling precautionary items on excessive rates, Pandey said.

Stringent action would be initiated against the medical store owners found to be "looting" the people who are scared and trying to prevent the spread of coronavirus, he added.

Read also: NPPA gives a deadline to manufacturers to submit availability data of 58 APIs

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) had warned of a global shortage and price gouging for protective equipment to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus and asked companies and governments to increase production by 40% as the death toll from the respiratory illness mounted.

Read also: WHO warns of global shortage of medical equipment, surgical masks, protective gowns, gloves to fight coronavirus

Even the apex drug regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had identified 58 significant APIs for monitoring of their availability to prevent any shortage of drugs in India and to take preventive measures over illegal hoarding and black-marketing in the country.