Status: 15.01.2024, 11:03 a.m.
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The pharmacy sign hangs on the façade of a house. © Martin Schutt/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa/Symbolbild
Six Berlin pharmacies are suspected of illegally reselling a relatively expensive state-provided coronavirus drug. Investigations are underway against the operators, one assumes an approximate damage of three million euros in the capital alone, said a spokesman for the Berlin public prosecutor's office on Monday on request. According to information from WDR, NDR and "Süddeutsche Zeitung", which previously reported on this, the Federal Ministry of Health has filed criminal charges against pharmacists at more than 25 public prosecutor's offices nationwide.
Berlin - It is about the drug Paxlovid, which is intended to protect patients from a severe course of the disease in the event of an acute corona infection. It has been prescribed by doctors since the end of February 2022. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) had high hopes for the drug in combination with vaccinations. However, it can have a number of interactions and must be taken very early in the disease.
Paxlovid had been purchased in large quantities by the Federal Ministry of Health, one million packs were to be available for 2022 alone, as it had been said at the time. Pharmacies could request the drug, as the spokesman for the prosecutor's office said. During inspections, however, it was noticed that six Berlin pharmacies had ordered an unusually large number of packages. Searches at the request of the Federal Ministry of Health had already taken place last year, also with the aim of evaluating business documents. "It is possible that a large part of the drugs have been sold abroad," said the spokesman for the investigating authority. The price per pack is in the mid three-digit range. Dpa