MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. Prices of medical face masks are growing with suppliers but remain unchanged in pharmacy chains and no shortage exists, Director of the Russian Association of Pharmacy Chains Nelli Ignatyeva told TASS on Tuesday.

"There is no shortage overall but it is difficult to forecast the demand because availability of masks differs across pharmacies," Ignatyeva said. "Suppliers increased prices; pharmacies did not raise their markups, even make them smaller, but the price hiked overall. There should be no shortage. The number of masks is sufficient, even despite their absence in individual pharmacies," the expert said.

The situation is mixed on the market: certain suppliers leveled prices up, while the other ones kept them unchanged, according to Association’s data.

36.6 Pharmacy Chain confirmed the increase in procurement prices but noted that the chain has enough face masks. "Medical masks continue enjoying high demand in pharmacies of our chain. Producers were not ready for such situation. Their inventories are close to end and we see that procurement prices for masks started growing. Nevertheless, our chain has its own inventories for the short term," Commercial Director of the chain Evgeniya Lamina said.

"There were problems with availability of masks with suppliers but no problems with availability are since February 1," Melodiya Zdorovya chain said in a comment.

"It is difficult for us to assess whether the masks procurement prices hiked because we repeatedly faced shortages with key suppliers lately. Nevertheless, the selling price of masks in the Evalar pharmacy chain was not reviewed, despite varying prices of masks suppliers," Evalar chain said in a comment.

The Russian regulator Roszdravnadzor earlier opened a hotline on presence of masks and antivirus drugs in connection with the outbreak of the new coronavirus infection.