Czech Health Minister Leos Heger on Friday partially lifted a hard liquor ban, allowing the sale of hard liquor produced in and before 2011, the CTK news agency reported.

Sales of liquor bottles with a proven origin and exports of older spirits and those with a proven origin are also possible, he added.

Heger said he believed the new rules will be in force for several months, while alcohol production and distribution regulations are amended.

The two-week total ban on the sale of drinks stronger than 20 percent proof was introduced in reaction to a series of methanol poisonings that claimed 26 lives in the Czech Republic and several more in Poland.

A total of 85 people have been poisoned.

It is believed that some 15,000 liters of dangerous alcohol are still in circulation, Heger said.