Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a re­port made by the Min­istry of Health re­gard­ing the il­le­gal sale of Ozem­pic, af­ter spot­ting so­cial me­dia posts ad­ver­tis­ing the drug, which is used for di­a­betes, be­ing sold lo­cal­ly.

“The in­for­ma­tion that came to our at­ten­tion has been sub­mit­ted to the nec­es­sary en­force­ment agency through our le­gal unit ... that’s the task force,” prin­ci­pal phar­ma­cist at the Min­istry of Health, Anisa Dood­nath-Si­boo, said last Fri­day, dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee meet­ing on the cur­rent sys­tems and pro­ce­dures for reg­u­lat­ing the op­er­a­tions of phar­ma­cies.

She said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mained ac­tive and could not pro­vide fur­ther de­tails.

“In terms of the on­line ad­ver­tise­ment, which is some­thing we are al­so see­ing on the me­dia, that has al­so been re­ferred to the TTPS be­cause the ad­ver­tis­ing of the Third Sched­ule is def­i­nite­ly a breach of the Food and Drug Act,” she said.

Mean­while, le­gal ad­vi­sor at the min­istry, Mala Kow­lessar-Tagaille, said since they in­creased in­spec­tions in 2023, they had found dozens of phar­ma­cies in breach of var­i­ous pro­vi­sions, in­clud­ing the sale of il­le­gal drugs.

“Right now, the Min­istry of Health has made 84 re­fer­rals of breach­es. This would be for 84 phar­ma­cies in breach of var­i­ous pro­vi­sions and con­tra­ven­tions, in­clud­ing the sale of un­reg­is­tered prod­ucts un­der the Food and Drugs Act,” Kow­lessar-Tagaille said.

She added that no one had been charged so far.

How­ev­er, Dood­nath-Si­boo not­ed a re­duc­tion in the num­ber of un­reg­is­tered prod­ucts ap­pear­ing on phar­ma­cy shelves.