Penang Pharmacist Shares Details About Fake Panadol Circulating In The Market

In his Facebook post, part-time blogger and pharmacist Zeff Tan shared that he had heard about fake Panadols in the country but only managed to get hold of the product recently.

At the time of writing, the post had gone viral with over 3,300 shares.

At first, while the packaging of both Panadol pills looks similar, the pharmacist added that they can be distinguished through a series of methods.

Cross-check the MAL number printed on the back of the Panadol tablets strip.

According to Ministry of Health Malaysia, all pharmaceutical products including health supplements must be registered with the Drug Control Authority (DCA) of Malaysia before being marketed to the public. 

To ensure the products are registered with DCA, netizens can look up on the registered figure that begins with 'MAL' followed by eight numbers behind it and then ending with T, A, X, or N. 

To determine whether the drugs are registered supplements, visit the link here to enter the details of the product.

Zeff shared that fake Panadol tablets will have a rough packaging material unlike the genuine product.

Besides that, in the picture above, Zeff revealed that one of the packaging had a spelling error in which 'Glaxosmithkline' is the company that manufactures Panadol tablets and not 'ClaxoSmithKline'.

Mothership also pointed out that genuine paracetamol pills would include the ® symbol in which fake products do not. 

Tablets with rough edges would mean that the product was not properly manufactured unlike genuine paracetamol drugs. 

Zeff advised the public to only consume drugs purchased from reputable pharmaceutical stores and to buy the whole packaging instead of tablet strips.