The desperation that the world is experiencing to obtain vaccines against the coronavirus in the midst of a pandemic has reached Mexicans. While the richest cross the border to receive a dose in the United States, those who have less are trying more dangerous resources, such as buying products of unknown origin on the internet and on social networks. Mexico has vaccinated only 1% of its population and has not received a dose for almost a month. The rush to get an injection has led to an illegal sale of drugs that are not registered. Mexican authorities have warned of offers of alleged antigens from Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca that are not real, and have launched a virtual hunt for websites that sell illegal doses.
Anyone who buys a vaccine on a website in Mexico may end up receiving a bottle of water instead of a vial, a preparation made in an uncertified laboratory, or simply be scammed and receive nothing after paying. Karin Tilens Revah, a criminal psychologist, is one of 40 members of the Mexico City Cyber Police that is on the hunt for virtual scams. “We know that the vaccine [en el país] It is not sold for any reason, it is only given through the Government ”and for free, he explains. In recent weeks they have found dozens of offers to buy the covid vaccine on fake pages, social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, or the messaging service Messenger.
“If you go online and look for ‘sale of covid vaccine’, it is likely that you will find people who are selling them. You walk into the page and it looks real. But if they are offering the vaccine, it is false ”. Currently in Mexico there is no private company authorized to import immunizations and sell them in national territory, says the agent.
The first alert to jump was from Pfizer. At the beginning of January, the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) issued a warning of offers of fake vaccines of this brand. The page www.pfizermx.com it was one of these scam sites. Tilens Revah’s team – working in conjunction with a team from the National Guard – discharged him. At that time they used logos stolen from the official website of the pharmaceutical company to convince the user. The injection cost around 3,000 pesos, about $ 150. Once the customer made the payment, through a bank deposit or transferring financial data, the drug was supposedly sent to the buyer’s home 24 hours later. The promised dose never came. “They are taking advantage of the need of people to profit from the pandemic,” says the official.
A few weeks ago Pfizer’s alert was joined by Moderna’s. And just a few days ago, that of AstraZeneca. “Anyone puts a label on a little bottle and obviously what it is: water, if not worse,” explains Tilens Revah. The vaccine is just the latest addition to a long list of products to treat covid listed on the internet. Since the pandemic began, the National Guard’s Scientific Directorate General has taken down 2,300 sites and fake social media accounts that they illegally traded at the cost of necessity. Some 1,600 were allegedly selling covid tests, medications, face masks, and ventilators; about 400, gels and disinfectants; another 300, oxygen; and recently, they have taken down “just over 10 sites” that sold illegal vaccines for between $ 50 and $ 150 a dose.
Oliver González, head of the General Scientific Directorate of the National Guard, explains that these sites use the image of large pharmaceutical companies to deceive. “The pages in the dark web or on the traditional internet they advertise the vaccine with information that they invent or have collected and the user falls into fraud in his desperation ”, he says. In 2020 alone, 40% of the illegal sites that González’s team has deactivated have been illegally sold related to the pandemic. Another of the great findings of the Capital Cyber Police occurred in 2020, when they took down several web pages posing as official suppliers of the American brand 3M, one of the main manufacturers of the N95 mask.
Amid a global context of despair, other countries have also warned of illegal vaccine sales. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched earlier this year a statement on the sale of vaccines that “have not been evaluated for safety and efficacy, and may be dangerous.” A notice that adds to the one issued by Interpol in December, when it warned of “criminal activities related to counterfeiting, theft or illicit advertising of vaccines” and asked to prevent immunizations from falling into the hands of organized crime.
The epidemiologist Mauricio Rodríguez assures that it is “a risk” to be vaccinated with these substances bought on the internet because they can be made in laboratories without the necessary certificates or with ingredients that do not have the required purity. “They don’t have studies that show quality or safety,” he says. At best, it’s just water, he explains, and at worst, it can lead to toxicity because it’s not clear what’s in the bottle. “Even if you don’t have any potentially harmful substances, chances are you don’t have what it takes to protect people either,” he adds.
Rodríguez, who is also the spokesperson for the commission of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for the covid, speaks of a “euphoria for vaccines.” Immunization, he explains, “was proposed as an immediate and available solution, and people relaxed the measures and more infections occurred.” Part of the cases that were registered in January, according to him, were produced by this euphoria that generated “a false sense of protection.” It was a communication error, he says, because vaccination will be slow and gradual. “The whole planet needs it now and availability is limited. That’s why you don’t have to worry about buying it, but about continuing to interrupt the chain of contagion ”.
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