A drive to collect and ensure proper disposal of large quantities of pharmaceuticals that are currently languishing unused in Greek households was announced by health minister Andreas Loverdos. According to the minister, four in ten Greek households is currently sitting on quantities of unused drugs, many of them past their expiration date, with an estimated total value that may exceed one billion euro.
Working in collaboration with the National Pharmaceuticals Organisation and the Panhellenic Pharmacists Association, the health ministry intends to put up 12,000 special bins at pharmacies throughout the country in March, where people can deposit medicines they no longer need.
The quantities of drugs that are collected will then be taken to the Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Technology, which will undertake to send them to specialised disposal centres abroad where they will be neutralised and burned. The ministry’s goal is to create a similar unit for destroying expired pharmaceuticals in Greece.
(source: ana-mpa, ANSA)
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