Pharmaceutical inspectors have discovered a trading company in the Barrier Gate checkpoint area supplying illegal Covid-19 medicine.
The Pharmaceutical Supervision and Administration Bureau said that the stocks of Primovir, an oral generic medicine manufactured in India had been imported without the bureau’s permission.
The bureau will refer the suspected illegal import case to the Macao Customs Service for breaching the External Trade Law.
The bureau said that in the course of carrying out inspections of pharmacies in the city, eight trading companies in the Barrier Gate checkpoint area were found to be suspected of illegally importing and supplying drugs.
The bureau underlined that only two oral Western medicines – Paxlovid tablets and Lagevrio capsules – produced by Pfizer and Merck, have been approved for import into Macao. The bureau stressed that both oral drugs have a range of contraindications and precautions, so they are currently only available by prescription from the Health Bureau.
As the safety, quality and effectiveness of drugs imported from unknown or unauthorised sources cannot be guaranteed, the bureau urged residents not to buy or take them, The Macau Post Daily reported.
