JOHANNESBURG – Custom officials at South Africa’s main international airport have seized hundreds of thousands of tablets of a drug that some people claim could be a remedy against the coronavirus, said police yesterday.
The force, in a statement, said “tablets suspected to be ivermectin” worth six million rand (RM1.6 million) have been seized at O.R. Tambo International Airport here in the past two weeks.
Six suspects have been arrested, and charged with carrying unregistered medicine and importing drugs without a licence.
“The unregistered medicine, which is mainly in tablet form, is believed to have been imported for sales purposes, and would have been utilised in the treatment of Covid-19,” said the statement.
Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic agent that some people claim is a potential cure for the coronavirus.
Demand for the drug has surged as a result, even though scientists insist there is not yet enough evidence to promote it as a Covid-19 remedy.
South Africa’s health products regulator tentatively approved the controlled use of ivermectin in humans this week, revoking a decision last month to block imports of the drug, which is not locally produced.
The ban sparked outrage among doctors lobbying for more research on ivermectin, and fuelled its underground trade.
Ivermectin is mainly used to kill parasites such as head lice on both animals and people, and has been widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1990s to treat river blindness.
It is usually registered for veterinary use in South Africa, but is not forbidden for humans. – AFP, January 31, 2021
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