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www.infmed.kharkov.ua Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says that the government is currently working on setting up a chain of state-owned drugstores.

She said this at a briefing on Monday, the cabinet's media relations office has reported.

"I think we'll do our utmost to create the necessary chain of state-owned drugstores in Ukraine," she said. "We're looking into the issue now."

She said that in previous years all Ukrainian drugstores were privatized, and this had yielded negative results.

"The fact that all drugstores became private in previous years is a big mistake," she said. "This means that the state has not created a special network of drugstores and cannot de-monopolize the domestic market."

However, she said that when there is a flu epidemic, people should go to hospitals rather than to drugstores.

"[There is] assistance available at hospitals, which have all the necessary provisions and are ready to service patients, rather than at private drugstores, which, unfortunately, have let down the country in this difficult time of epidemic," she said.