Immigration authorities have prevented thousands of bogus COVID “cures” including 23,100 ivermectin tablets from entering Singapore in recent weeks.
The tablets, used by vets to deworm horses and anti-vaxxers to poison themselves, were seized at cargo centers on five occasions between Sept. 10 and Oct. 6, according to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, or ICA. All cases were referred to the Health Sciences Authority, which two weeks ago advised the public against taking the prescription-only medicine lauded by conspiracy theorists after a woman was hospitalized.
The tablets arrived in parcels along with 2,000 tablets of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine – another panacea of the science-skeptical and QAnon-faithful. More than 2,000 tablets of organ antirejection drug mycophenolate mofetil, another unproven treatment, were intercepted. None of the drugs has been found to be effective against COVID-19.
ICA “officers at Changi Airfreight Centre and Airmail Transit Centre (Air Cargo Command) foiled five attempts at illegally importing ivermectin into Singapore via postal parcels. The buyers had either failed to declare the items or had declared them as ‘Healthcare Products,’” the authority said.
A parcel of 2,400 ivermectin tablets that arrived on Sept. 21 was declared as a “supplement pharma product.”
“The importations were not authorized by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and were detected when our officers noticed anomalies in the scanned images of the parcels,” ICA added.
The authority did not mention where the tablets came from.
Earlier this month, a woman landed in the hospital after suffering from side effects of ivermectin, which she had taken following peer pressure from her church friends, her daughter Vanessa Koh Wan Ling said. Koh did not immediately respond to an inquiry about her mother’s condition.
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