On the morning of April 9, Lao Dong Newspaper organized an online seminar with the theme: "Online drug sales management - Opportunities and challenges".
At the seminar, one of the contents discussed and shared by experts was related to the purchase and sale of drug and pharmaceutical products for personal use or through social networking platforms.
Pharmaceutical expert Nguyen Thanh Hai - Member of the Pharmaceutical Professional Council, Head Lecturer of the Northern Federation of FPT Long Chau Pharmacy and Vaccination System - assessed that people are very likely to face risks when buying drugs through social networking sites such as Facebook, TikTok, hand-carried goods...
"It is easy for people to buy counterfeit and fake goods. In particular, they are not clearly advised about drugs, which can lead to money loss, which is not in line with their desired needs" - Ms. Hai analyzed.
This expert also commented that there is currently a situation where supporting products are being sold everywhere, advertised excessively, posing many potential risks and risks to customers.
"People are overwhelmed by advertising information flows, not knowing what is the drug or functional food. This leads to the risk of them not buying products effectively - Ms. Hai shared.
As a pharmaceutical business unit, Ms. Hai said that on December 13, 2024, FPT Long Chau coordinated with the Center for Research and Application of Population Data and Electronic Identification under Department C06, Ministry of Public Security, to deploy electronic authentication services via the VneID application and of Long Chau pharmacy.
From January 1, 2025, people can completely buy medicine through this application. Buying medicine through the app helps people control information about the product, ensuring transparency, publicity, and convenience.
On the side of the state management agency, Mr. Phan Cong Chien - Head of the Department of Drug Business Management, Department of Drug Administration, Ministry of Health - informed that currently, according to the provisions of the Pharmacy Law, not every website, not everyone is allowed to sell drugs online.
"E-commerce for drug products is only applied in one of three forms: Sales website; Sales app; e-commerce platform. These forms all have to have ordering functions" - Mr. Chien said.
The Head of the Pharmaceutical Business Management Department also pointed out the reality that currently, goods of unknown origin are quite popular on e-commerce platforms, at the same time, recommending people to choose reputable sales establishments and only buy goods in the three new forms to ensure the origin and control product quality.
Regarding management solutions to avoid the situation of floating products and unknown origins being sold widely in the market, affecting the rights of consumers, the Department of Drug Administration, Ministry of Health said that propaganda and dissemination for businesses, raising awareness and awareness among people is always the top important factor.
To monitor and inspect, in addition to pre-inspections and post-inspections by pharmaceutical management agencies at central and local levels, monitoring information from professional associations from pharmaceutical businesses to each other, to people, press agencies, media... is all information to make transparent and adjust e-commerce activities for drugs if there is a deviation or does not meet the conditions.
In the long term, to ensure, propaganda and education of the law is still the most important" - Mr. Chien said.
