WHO and Interpol warn of growth in counterfeit Covid-19 vaccine activity – telam

They have alerted to criminal gangs that illegally market suspected Covid-19 vaccines.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) warnings about the growth in activity of fake coronavirus vaccines have increased in recent weeks, at a time when the shortage of inoculants is affecting the progress of vaccination campaigns in many countries.

“Some ministries of health and regulatory authorities have received suspicious offers of vaccines, and we have also detected that some doses are reintroduced into the distribution chain without maintaining an adequate cold room,” he warned recently during a press conference. WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

According to the Ethiopian official, Criminal gangs illegally market suspected Covid-19 vaccines – mostly adulterated, fake, or refilled doses – in the so-called Deep Internet, the area of ​​the web that is not accessible with traditional search engines.

“Any vaccine purchased outside of government health networks could be substandard or adulterated, and could cause serious harm,” warned Tedros, who also urged countries to raise the alert and report any suspicious vaccine sales.

“Any vaccine purchased outside of government health networks could be substandard or adulterated and could cause serious harm.” “

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

A recommendation similar to that repeatedly reiterated by Interpol, which published at the end of December an orange global opinion in which it considered this case as a “serious and imminent threat to public safety”, qualifying the vaccines as “liquid gold”.

“The networks behind these crimes have global ambitions. No country or region can fight this type of crime on its own. Interpol helps law enforcement around the world identify and dismantle criminal networks“said the organization’s general secretary, Jrgen Stock.

Adulterated vaccine seizures

Operations against the trade in fake vaccines have increased in recent months.

Last March, Mexican customs and military authorities discovered in a private plane a shipment of nearly 6,000 false doses of the Russian inoculant Sputnik V bound for Honduras at Campeche International Airport, in the south of the country.

Similar entries were also carried out in other Mexican states such as Nuevo Len and Sonora.

As, in South Africa, Some 2,400 false doses were seized from a warehouse in the suburbs of Johannesburg, where they also seized a shipment of false chinstrap FPP2 type of the American brand 3M. Three Chinese citizens and one from Zambia were arrested in connection with the operation.

A sales network for fake vaccines coronavirus was also dismantled in February by police in China, which arrested 80 suspects and seized more than 3,000 vaccines from an underground factory.

“Although we welcome this result, it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to crimes related to the Covid-19 vaccine,” Stock said at the time, recalling that the sale of vaccines on the Internet is not not approved.

Interpol ensures that complaints about this illegal activity -whose income is not less than six digits- sThey are more and more common as criminal gangs attempt to defraud healthcare and geriatric organizations.

In the Czech Republic, the government has repeatedly denounced having received offers to purchase AstraZeneca vaccines via suspected sellers from Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, while the Italian Kingdom of Veneto received offers to buy 27 million doses from anonymous intermediaries, which raised alarms from the central government.

According to figures from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the various scams or false offers at the beginning of April represented around 1 billion doses of fake vaccines for a total price of nearly 14 billion euros.