Prices of baby powder milk have shot again despite the recent subsidy ordered by the Council of Ministers to curtail its soaring cost. Pharmacists confirmed a 10-percent increase in the prices of new orders from importers. About a reduction in the prices of 1,400 items of medicines announced by the ministry of Health, the pharmacists said there has been no change so far. “On the contrary the prices of some medicines, especially some types of anti-histamine pills, have gone up,” one pharmacist told Al-Watan Arabic daily Dr Ali Al-Zawawi, director of Medical Licenses at the Ministry of Health, however said that his administration is strictly monitoring medicine prices and that the reduction would come about only when old stocks are exhausted. He sent out a strong warning that any pharmacy found violating the prices stipulated for medicines would be closed. The new prices will be registered on the medicines' boxes. Dr. Al-Zawawi declined to give a specific date for the enforcement of the new prices. __
