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U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• News Briefs
Woman in Sweden Accused of Buying HIV Drugs With Fake Prescriptions
March 13, 2003 Swedish police were looking Wednesday for a woman believed
to have used fake prescriptions to purchase HIV drugs worth as
much as $360,000. Since 2002, the woman used forged prescriptions
to buy the drugs 101 times at 15 different pharmacies in Malmoe,
Sweden. The HIV drugs may have been intended for sale on the
black market in Eastern Europe, said Hans Olsson, Malmoe police
spokesperson. The fraud was revealed after pharmacy employees
became suspicious of the woman's frequent purchases. In Sweden,
government subsidies allow people to buy drugs at discounts that
increase with the price of the product. Yearly costs for medicine
are capped at $213. The woman was able to get nearly all of the
HIV drugs for free because the HIV drugs are priced at $2,400 for
a three-month supply, said Thomy Bjork, spokesperson for the
state-owned Apoteket pharmacy chain. He added that Sweden's
privacy laws make tracking abuses of the system difficult.
Excerpted from:Back to other CDC news for March 13, 2003 Associated Press 03.12.03 This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update. |
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