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[Health Products Regulatory Authority] 1.6 million units of illegal medicines detained in 2020. (08 Jun 2021)

External website: https://www.hpra.ie/homepage/medicines/news-events...


The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) today expressed its concern at an increase in detentions of illegal medicines during 2020.  It announced today that its enforcement section detained some 1,610,295 dosage units* of falsified and other illegal medicines in 2020, an increase of 58% on 2019*. The HPRA states that the supply of these products into and within Ireland is illegal and stresses that consumers can have no guarantees about the safety or quality of prescription medicines they are seeking to buy outside of the regulated pharmacy setting.

It reminds the public for their own safety to only purchase medicines from authorised Irish sources. The national health products regulator also announced today it detained a further 103,000 dosage units of illegal prescription medicines this past week alone as part of its Operation Pangea actions in partnership with Revenue’s Customs Service and An Garda Síochána. Operation Pangea is an annual Interpol-coordinated international week of action targeting the online sale of falsified and illegal medicines via illicit online suppliers and/or ecommerce platforms.

In the 12 months of 2020, the most significant categories of illegal products included sedatives (36%), erectile dysfunction medicines (30%), analgesics (9%) and anabolic steroids (6%).....

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