Ordering medications from Ukraine to Finland is prohibited
The Finnish Medicines Agency (Fimea) learned about the existence of a network for delivering medications from Ukraine to Finland through third parties (carriers) for the first time from Satakieli.
In a written response, the regulator stated that obtaining medications from Ukraine through the post or couriers is prohibited.
“Import of medicines by third parties is not legally allowed and violates the Finnish Medicines Act. Other kinds of activities, like collecting and transmitting orders and importing medicines for other than importer’s own personal use, are considered as pharmaceutical wholesaling activities, which require a wholesale license,” Sami Paaskoski, the senior pharmacist at Fimea, writes in an email.
According to Finnish legislation, people can only bring medications from Ukraine for personal use and in limited quantities. Prescription medications require a prescription, but there are nuances.
“For prescription medicines, the passenger should have respective prescriptions or a doctor’s letter where medicines and dosages are declared. If the product is classified a prescription-only medicine in Finland, the documents are required even if the product could have been bought without prescription in Ukraine,” Paaskoski comments.
Sometimes what is registered in other countries as dietary supplements, herbal remedies, or homeopathic remedies is regarded as medicine in Finland. This is also stated on the Finnish Customs (Tulli) website.
Experts from Fimea and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), whom Satakieli reached out for comments, do not have extensive knowledge about the specifics of the Ukrainian medical system and pharmaceutical market regulation, and therefore cannot fully assess the potential risks to the Finnish medical system.
However, discussions about specific cases, such as uncontrolled use of antibiotics and the supply of medications from a country where up to 15 percent of the pharmaceutical market is classified as counterfeit by the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, raise concerns for experts at Fimea interviewed for this article.
In such cases, no one can guarantee the quality of the medications and the adequacy of treatment. Regarding antibiotics, this could lead to problems that would affect the entire Finnish medical system.
“The risks can culminate at the personal level (antibiotics are no more effective against infections), in the healthcare sector (for example, people who are carriers of antibiotic-resistant/multidrug-resistant bacteria need to be isolated in hospitals), as well as among the general population, as resistant microbes spread,” Paaskoski writes in an email.