Ministry prohibits online selling of unregistered drugs

THE Ministry of Health has prohibited four Facebook accounts from selling their products as they are not registered and have not been given permission to advertise by the ministry, according to a March 23 notice.

The four Facebook accounts were identified as Our Health and Beauty, which sells a product labelled as Huatuozhichuanggao; GET ONE, selling SirulinaChherein (GET CE); and Thy Na Beauty Skin care and Thy Na Organic Skin Care, both advertising cosmetic products.

“The products advertised on these Facebook accounts are not registered with the health ministry,” the announcement said.

Cambodian laws require that medicines or health products of all kinds receive a registration number from the health ministry and the vendor must request permission before advertising them.

“In order to avoid wasting your money or risking negative impacts on your health, stop using these medicines and products. They have no clear source and no one can guarantee their quality or safety,” the notice said.

The owner of the Our Health and Beauty Facebook page, Suon Sovannarith, told The Post on March 24 that he would suspend all sales activities for now and work with the ministry to ensure his products are legally registered.

“Actually, the products I’m selling have been sold by many people whereas I wanted a monopoly on them for my company, but I won’t be selling any of them for now,” he said.

Sovannarith said he has sold the Huatuozhichuanggao products, which were imported from China, for less than a year.

“This is going to be tough. If I don’t sell them, I will have no income – and it wasn’t much income to begin with. I was only making $10 or $20 a day and using that to get by during the Covid-19 crisis. But if I sell them now, the ministry will take legal action,” he said.

He added that clients who bought the products and used them had not reported any health problems or made any complaints about them.