The Carabinieri NAS have 'blacked out' 92 websites where medicines were being sold illegally.
As part of a targeted telematic surveillance operation against pharmaceutical cybercrime, conducted in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, the military personnel of the operational unit therefore executed 92 access inhibition orders issued by the General Directorate of Medical Devices and Pharmaceutical Service of the ministry, upon proposal of the aforementioned unit, against an equal number of websites located on foreign servers and with references to unidentifiable managers, on which advertising and the offer for sale, also in Italian, of various types of medicines were carried out, many of which were also connected to the Covid-19 pandemic emergency.
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In fact, in addition to a series of drugs with various therapeutic indications and subject to prescription, as well as sold only in pharmacies by a qualified pharmacist, the NAS Carabinieri have identified the offer for sale of medicines allegedly containing active ingredients subject to particular restrictions of use and specific indications for use in relation to Sars-Cov-2 infection such as the antimalarials chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, in relation to which AIFA in December 2020 published an updated sheet containing useful elements to guide the prescription and define a relationship between benefits and risks for the individual patient, and the antivirals lopinavir/ritonavir, of which the same regulatory Agency has suspended the off-label use outside of clinical experimental studies. Also present in the identified sites are the antiviral ribavirin, for which compassionate use has been authorized limited to hospitalized patients with respiratory difficulties related to Covid-19, the antibiotic azithromycin, for which AIFA has issued a fact sheet that offers necessary elements for a correct prescription and to evaluate the relationship between benefits and risks for the patient, the anti-inflammatory drugs colchicine, the subject of an experimental study in the treatment of Covid-19, and indomethacin, the intake of which outside of strict medical supervision can cause very serious side effects, as well as colchicine, used to relieve pain from acute gout attacks, for which AIFA has authorized a clinical study that aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the active ingredient in reducing the rate of hospitalization of home patients with symptomatic Sars-Cov-2 infection.
Among the products present in the 'virtual showcases' of some of the blacked-out sites, drugs based on umifenovir were detected, an antiviral active ingredient for which the Italian Medicines Agency has long since specified the lack of authorization in the EU and the lack of scientific evidence on its efficacy in the treatment and prevention of Covid-19. Finally, it is worth mentioning the access ban for two additional sites that not only presented medicines based on salbutamol, a bronchodilator used in the treatment of asthma, and anabolics banned for doping, but also products allegedly based on dinitrophenol, a chemical substance not intended for human consumption that, if taken, alters the functions of cells by causing them to disperse energy as heat instead of storing it inside them, determining a 'fat burning' effect that leads to rapid weight loss, but is highly unpredictable and seriously harmful to the body as it causes an increase in body temperature, profuse sweating and an increase in heart rate and breathing. With today's measures, the measures carried out so far in 121 by the NAS rise to 2021, which, in maintaining high attention on the delicate and dangerous phenomenon by recalling that the online sale of drugs subject to prescription is absolutely prohibited, renew the invitation to citizens to be wary of online offers of unauthorized medicines or of dubious origin and to always check, with regards to the offer for sale and advertising of "medicines without prescription" (Sop/Otc), the presence of the required national identification logo, by clicking which you are redirected to the web page of the Ministry of Health website containing the data relating to the authorization.
Article published on 24 April 2021 - 08:44
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