The smuggled drugs, most of which come from Asia, are often ineffective, contaminated or counterfeit drugs. Experts therefore warn against improper ingestion. “In the past few months we have seen a real campaign to use the worming agent ivermectin as an alleged Covid cure. This has led to a flood of seizures of the agent by customs. Instead of protecting themselves against coronavirus, these people are endangering their health, ”said Finance Minister Gernot Blümel on Sunday, appalled by this development, which is mainly being registered in mail distribution centers. Customs will therefore continue to perform its task vigorously and monitor it with particular vigilance, said Blümel.
In any case, the provisional balance sheet by customs is ringing all alarm bells: If there were only a few ivermectin seizures in the first half of 2021, 7,640 were seized in October alone. That is more than 50 times that of January. Between September and mid-November, a total of 15,844 tablets, most of which were ordered online and sent by post, were confiscated by customs. The explosive increase in the seizures of ivermectin drugs in Austria was also confirmed in an EU-wide customs campaign that took place in October and until mid-November: In terms of the number of ivermectin shipments seized, Austria ranks second in the EU .
The drug is shipped under various product names, mainly from Singapore, India and Hong Kong. The shipments were intended for recipients throughout Austria. The front runners were recipients in Lower Austria, followed by Upper Austria, Vienna and Styria.
After the detection, the customs authorities report the violation of the Medicines Import Act to the responsible district administrative authorities, which then set penalties and then either destroy the medication or return it to the sender at the expense of the purchaser. The penalty for the illegal import of drugs is a fine of up to 7,260 euros.
However, the consequences of taking drugs ordered from dubious providers on the Internet could be far more serious. Apart from the fact that possible treatment errors cannot be ruled out when purchasing health goods without medical expertise outside a medical practice or pharmacy, smuggled drugs are often ineffective or contaminated – also because in many cases they are counterfeits.
