2024-07-03 17:16:51
(ANSA) – ROME, JULY 3 – Six out of 10 illicit advertisements relating to the online sale of drugs are not recognized by users and in general only 53% of online advertisements for drugs are correctly classified by consumers as legal or illegal. These are some of the data that emerged from the Capsule project and published on the website of the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA). The project, conducted by the Transcrime research center of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore with the support of AIFA and the contribution of the Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection of Michigan State University, investigated the level of awareness of consumers on the risk of purchasing counterfeit drugs online.
The study, conducted in January 2024, involved a representative sample of regular internet users in Italy and Spain who were aware of the possibility of purchasing drugs online and exposed to online ads or who had purchased at least one drug online. From a combination of legal and illegal drug ads, consumers correctly classified the legal ads 63% of the time, while they found it more difficult to identify the illegal ads – only 43% of the time in Italy and 42% in Spain -. The factors that most influenced users’ evaluations were the absence of a certification label from the Ministry of Health, the absence of a description of the drug or the presence of errors in the description.
The majority is aware that in the two countries legal online sales of medicines are limited to those without a medical prescription (73% in Italy and 66% in Spain) and 58% in Italy (52% in Spain) rely on the Internet to obtain medical information, approximately 40% search online for specific medical solutions or alternative treatments. Italy shows a higher rate of online purchases (69%) of medicines than Spain (52%). The comparison with a previous survey conducted in 2015-2016 by Aifa and Sapienza University of Rome highlighted a significant increase in online purchases of medicines in both countries. In Italy, the majority of online purchases concerned medicines for the flu, followed by medicines for chronic pain and cholesterol treatment. (ANSA).
2024-07-03 17:16:51