Storage facilities fill up owing to ban

Prague, Sept 17 (CTK) - Twenty million bottles with hard liquor have been in storage facilities since a nationwide ban on the sales of drinks with more than 20 percent of alcohol was introduced on Friday, Health Minister Leos Heger said yesterday, adding that lawyers will discuss further procedure tonight.

"Exports have not been restricted and the measure exclusively relates to retail sales to consumers," Heger said after a meeting of the emergency committee that has been created to deal with the current series of deaths from bootleg alcohol.

He said it is now being discussed how to return a part of the bottles back to shops and restaurants and prevent a return of the poisonings epidemic.

Heger said it is not yet possible to restrict the prohibition measures as yet with regard for the number of the poisoned and dead.

He said further people may be poisoned with methanol or even die after the prohibition is lifted and cited the experience from Norway and the Baltic countries.

"People were dying even half a year after the epidemic subsided. The process of cleaning the network will be very slow. But we must prevent the massive occurrence now," Heger said.

He said the committee did not discuss possible compensation for firms and added that a "legal battle" will be waged for this.

Heger said he believes that the risks rests with the producers who should guarantee their products.

The detectives have reinforced their team seeking the source of bootleg alcohol with people from the police presiidium and from the regions.

The police dismissed the information that the source of the lethal methyl alcohol comes from Poland and said they still continue working on several variants.

Twenty-three people have been accused as yet, the police said.

"The police will continue providing information of the preventative character," Police President Martin Cervicek said.

He said the investigation may take weeks and that the police would not release any tactical connections of the investigation in order not to threaten the result.

The Czech state is now negotiating with the producer of the medicine fomepizole used in the treatment of methanol poisoning about the officially paid import, Heger said.

He said four of the 30 doses that Norwegian physician Erik Hovda brought to the Czech Republic for free last week have been used.

Heger said methyl alcohol has killed 19 people in the Czech Republic since September 6 according to official data. The results of the autopsies of another four dead are not yet known.

Another six new methyl alcohol poisonings have been reported in the past 24 hours, Heger said.