Authorities seize unnotified cosmetics, unregistered medicines worth RM218,000 in several raids

Some of the products seized in the raids.

SEREMBAN: The authorities here have seized a total of 90 types of unnotified cosmetics and unregistered medicines worth almost RM218,000 in several raids conducted last week.

Acting state Health director Dr Mohammad Faid Abd Rashid said that the products were seized from two houses and a car on Oct 21 and include unregistered traditional and over-the-counter medicines.

"The public needs to be extra careful when buying any health and cosmetic products and have to be certain that these products comply with the requirements of the law," he said in a statement.

Dr Mohammad Faid said that no arrests were made in the raids, which were jointly conducted by the state Health department, the Health Ministry's Pharmacy Enforcement Division and the state Narcotics Crime Investigation Department.

He also said that the preliminary investigations showed that the products were also being marketed in Pahang and Johor.

On the sale of such items, Dr Mohammad Faid said first-time individual offenders could be fined up to RM25,000, jailed a maximum of three years or both upon conviction under the Sale of Drugs Act 1952.

For subsequent offences, they could be fined up to RM50,000, jailed for not more then five years or both if found guilty of an offence under the same Act.

Companies could be fined up to RM50,000 for the first offence and RM100,000 for subsequent offences.

It was an offence for anyone to manufacture or import a cosmetic product without prior notification to the Director of Pharmaceutical Services.

"On its part, the Ministry will continue to carry out enforcement activities at premises which sell these products to ensure they are registered and genuine," he said.

He said the ministry had introduced a FarmaTagTM hologram security label in 2019 for all registered products which allowed consumers to check if these were authentic.

Consumers could also check if the label was genuine by using the Farmachecker application which could be downloaded for free from the Google Playstore, Apple AppStore and Huawei AppGallery.

Dr Mohammad Faid said the public could also verify the product registration number and the notification of a cosmetic product at www.npra.gov.my or by contacting the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency at 03-78835400 or by downloading the NPRA Product Status application.

"We also encourage the public and the media to give us information if they have doubts on the authenticity of a particular product so that we can stop these from being sold to unsuspecting consumers," he said.

They could do so through the Public Complaints Management System (SISPAA) at moh.spab.gov.my.

The public could also call the National Pharmacy Call Centre at 1800-88-6722 for more information.