Fake Tylenol Alert Issued by Belize Ministry of Health & Wellness

The Ministry of Health & Wellness (MOHW) is warning the public that fake Tylenol is being circulated. The falsified products are packets of 500-milligram extra strength Tylenol with the batch number GS13790 which have an expiration date of March 2024. Director of the Ministry’s Drug Inspectorate Unit Chrystal Samouge said that the Ministry is only in the preliminary stages of the investigation and is prioritizing the removal of the falsified medications above other administrative steps.

Chrystal Samouge, Director of the Drug Inspectorate Unit, Ministry of Health and Wellness: “In this particular case we actually received an alert someone was actually concerned. This is something that we encourage. We do encourage the public, if you feel that something is wrong let us know so that we can start an investigation. So we received the alert. We went out. We conducted something known as market surveillance. We went out. We got samples at the location where the medication was said to be found and we collected it and we were able to get the samples and confirm with Johnson & Johnson that that product is not their product. At this time I don’t have an exact figure. Immediately after the confirmation, we received the confirmation we started the removal. It’s something that is still ongoing because it’s not at all the supermarkets. So we are literally going around to all the stores seeing if they have the falsified version of the title in all and then removing them. We are still very in the early stages of this investigation. As soon as we receive the confirmation the first thing that we want to do is we want to go there and remove it. That’s the first priority. When we are satisfied that we have removed what is available on the market, then we’re going to sit down and we’re going to look at the quantities that was available in each district and so on. Thus far, we have identified the product in the Orange Walk district, the Cayo district, and the Belize district.”

Samouge added that, thus far the investigation has revealed that the medications do not fit any batch number from medications authorized to be imported, meaning that they came into the country illegally. She stressed that it is important to only purchase pharmaceuticals from licensed distributors.

Chrystal Samouge, Director of the Drug Inspectorate Unit, Ministry of Health and Wellness: “So based on what we are observing when we’re actually going out into the supermarkets and removing the medication is that the merchants are saying that they could not recognize the medication as a falsified medication. We’re trying to figure out where it is that they’re purchasing the medication from and it appears that it’s not from any of the licensed drug distributors in the country. And it seems to be a salesperson who came around once and they have not seen that person again. At the Ministry of Health and Wellness, we encourage everyone, whether it’s a patient or a consumer, whether it’s a merchant, shopkeeper, we ask persons to please ensure that they purchase medications only from licensed distributors or from licensed facilities, right? When we issue a license from the Ministry of Health and Wellness it means that we would have taken steps to ensure that the products that they offer or the services that they offer are of quality, right? When someone is purchasing a contraband medication, a medication that is too good to be true because of the price purchasing from a random stranger that they don’t know comes around once or twice, you know the quality of that medication is not guaranteed. It’s a very, very dangerous practice for persons to be getting medication and medical supplies from unauthorized and unlicensed distributors.”

Several people have reported to the ministry that they have consumed the fake Tylenol, but thus far, there have not been any reports of someone having an adverse reaction to the medication. Anyone with knowledge of stores selling fake Tylenol or other falsified medications is urged to report it by calling the ministry at 822-2325 or 828-6721.