Expired Medicines On Sale On Sofia Flea Market

Dangerous medicines of unknown origin and past sell-by dates are being sold on the flea market in Sofia's Malashevtsi residential district.

According to reports of private TV station bTV, the drugs are exhibited on the ground alongside plastic basins, slippers and books.

A strong anti-depressant, for instance, can be bought for BGN 1.50, despite the fact that the sale of the medication in Bulgaria has not been explicitly permitted and that the leaflet information is in Turkish.

The seller of the anti-depressant is unaware about the method of application of the anti-depressant.

The flea market in Malashevtsi also offers children's syrups, antibiotics, anti-infection sprays, pills for diabetics and asthma inhalers priced at BGN 5, despite the fact that they are fully reimbursed by the National Health Insurance Fund.

Asked by journalists to comment on the scandalous practice, one of the sellers says that the Roma are not buying but are supplying the drugs.

Dimitar Marinov, master of pharmacy, says that a large portion of the medicines that are being sold on the flea market (some 80-90%) are past their sell-by date.

"These are not medicines, this is rubbish," he adds.

Fines for illegal sales of medication amount to 4-digit sums.

"This is most likely the result of robberies because we have had signals about pharmacies that have been broken into," says Asena Stoimenova, Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union.

The batch numbers enable the authorities to track each medicine back to a certain trader or a warehouse.

What makes the situation more complicated is the fact that the regime for the disposal of medications that have passed their expiration dates is very outdated.

Under current legislation in the sphere, expired drugs cannot be thrown away in the garbage, but there is no authority in charge of the ordinance's implementation.

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