Filenews 8 July 2025 - by Marilena Panayi
After the raids on hairdressers and beauty salons, exactly one year ago, for the detection of falsified or unlicensed injectable preparations for diabetes, which were illegally administered to citizens for weight loss, the competent authorities are now sounding the alarm for the circulation of unapproved and unknown injectable Botox preparations.
The warning announcement issued by the Pharmaceutical Services after the detection of such preparations in individual clinics but mainly in beauty salons caused panic among citizens with the Ministry of Health stressing that "citizens must all be informed and choose correctly, both the preparations administered to them and the professionals to whom they are addressed".
"These are injectable preparations and certainly not anyone can administer them," the director of Pharmaceutical Services, Elena Panayotopoulos, told "F", giving as an example "a video from a beauty salon in the free areas, which presents the administration of a specific formulation whose packaging bears a Turkish indication, which means that it was probably secured by the occupied territories".
"We, as pharmaceutical services, cannot know if this preparation is suitable or not, if it is falsified or if it is indeed a drug because we cannot exercise any control. We do not know the importer, we are not responsible for its licensing, so we are not in a position to protect the citizen who receives it", stressed the director of pharmaceutical services.
Recalling that "a year ago we had proceeded to similar warnings when we received complaints about hairdressers and other places where injectable drugs for diabetes were sold or administered with the aim of losing weight for aesthetic reasons", at the moment "we receive an increased number of complaints and we have identified some of these preparations for the circulation of injectable Botox that did not reach Cyprus through the legal route but they are granted to citizens mainly in premises not approved for these acts".
A very small number of preparations with these characteristics "have also been detected in doctors' offices, but these are exceptions since the majority of doctors follow all legal and safe procedures. What concerns us the most is their granting and circulation in unapproved places and possibly by unqualified persons".
"The administration of a drug to the human body," Mrs. Panayotopoulos concluded, "is not a simple matter. It is a drug that enters the human body, both the act itself and the formulation administered, we must be sure that it is safe and does not endanger the person who takes it."
"When such products are imported outside the legal route, we as Pharmaceutical Services cannot control them and we are certainly deeply concerned by the fact that these products are located in premises that are not approved for this purpose under normal conditions. Perhaps this is an issue that we as a state need to study in a little more detail in the future," concluded the director of pharmaceutical services.
