With Fred’s closed, rural Mississippi county has no pharmacy

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - With the nationwide closure of Fred’s Pharmacy, one Mississippi county is taking it really hard.

The residents of Kemper County in east-central Mississippi now find themselves without any pharmacy in the entire county.

The Clarion Ledger reports residents will have to place and pick up prescriptions at pharmacies in Meridian or Philadelphia - about a 30-minute drive to each one.

Mississippi Board of Pharmacy President Ryan Harper says that will be an issue for some of the state’s most critical patients. He says patients on multiple prescriptions also usually have a huge hurdle of having access to reliable transportation.

Fred’s closed Oct. 18. It was located in the county seat of Dekalb, which had a population of just over 1,000 residents.

___

Information from: The Clarion Ledger, http://www.clarionledger.com