Wrote: Endrit Berisha
A Facebook post claimed humanitarian aid for a prostate treatment medication.
The account named “Medical Office – EU” published a post on May 7 in which it called for people to take a drug to treat prostate cancer. The call was made saying that this was humanitarian aid.
"Hurry up and get it - Attention! Humanitarian aid has been designated for all residents of Kosovo! Medicine for the treatment of prostate for only 3 days! Hurry up and get it," the post reads, without giving any other details.
What's wrong with the post?
After verification by hibrid.info, it turns out that the post uses old photos from a foreign country; clicking on the article leads to a suspicious page; and that the medication in question, "Prostafix", is not on the list of products with marketing authorization in the Republic of Kosovo.
Link to the post of “Medical Office – EU”:
Verification has revealed that the photo in this post was also used in 2021 in Ukraine in the announcement that the AstraZeneca vaccine had arrived to fight COVID-19. (see here)
The Facebook post has received several comments. Some of them have even provided personal information in the comments, in an attempt to obtain the medication.
If you click on the post, it opens the suspicious page “lollu.site”. After entering this page, any click leads to a payment of five euros. So, it is not about humanitarian aid. (see here)
The article that opens after clicking displays content that talks about the “rapid increase in mortality rates” from prostate complications. It initially uses a photograph of the Kosovo Assembly from more than four years ago.
The article also features a photo of a doctor. The photo is of urologist Hugo Davila from the Florida Cancer Research Institute (see here).
At the end of this promotional content published on the suspicious website, there is also a section of comments, which have praised this product or asked questions about it. However, none of these profiles can be clicked on in order to verify that they are real people.
If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, it appears with an address in Moscow, Russia. The Russian language is used in the description for the “Privacy Policy” and “Terms of Use.”
After verification, it turns out that the drug “Prostafix” is not part of the list of products with marketing authorization in Kosovo, provided by the Kosovo Agency for Medicinal Products and Devices (AKPPM). The latest list is dated April 15, 2024. Marketing Authorization is a document that guarantees the quality, quantity and efficacy of drugs. (see here)
Analyze:
The "Medical Office - EU" account on Facebook has published a photo claiming to provide humanitarian aid to Kosovo residents to treat prostate cancer.
After verification by hibrid.info, it turns out that the content uses old photos and has nothing to do with the medicine that the site advertises. Also, a dubious website is used to advertise this medicine, which also has data in Russian and photos that are not related to the content. Also, the advertised medicine does not come free as it is proclaimed. It turns out that the medicine discussed is not even part of the list of medicines with marketing authorization in Kosovo.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "fraud".
Reasoning:
The “Deception” rating is given to informational content that is manipulated in terms of visual (deepfake, cheapfake), audio, or textual content to deceive the audience. This form of deception is usually used to produce false and manipulated content.