(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Last year alone, approximately 25,000 cases involving the sale of medication over the Internet were uncovered by authorities.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, there were 122,712 cases of illegal online sales of medication from 2013 to June of this year.
The number of cases has been increasing steadily over the years, starting with 18,665 cases in 2013. Last year, 24,955 cases were reported, and 12,072 cases were reported in the first half of this year.
Under current laws, medication cannot be sold online.
If such instances are discovered by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety during monitoring of online commercial transactions, the ministry alerts the Korea Communications Standards Commission which in turn takes appropriate measures to either block or delete the problematic websites.
Of all the cases of medicine sold online last year, half of the products were related to sexual health.
Other popular medication included stimulants (2,298 cases), pain relief patches (1,462 cases), and dermatological medication (1,264 cases).
H. S. Seo (hsseo@koreabizwire.com)
