UPDATE: COVID-19 AdHelp Information – Therapeutic and Health

To assist advertisers to comply with the ASA Codes, the ASA recently developed AdHelp information on advertising therapeutic and health products and services during COVID-19 – this document (available here) has been updated today, 23 April 2020, to include information from a recent New Zealand Gazette notice which states from 22 April 2020, the importation, manufacture, sale, supply and use of COVID-19 point of care* test kits and materials is prohibited, unless authorised by Medsafe.  Further background information provided by Medsafe is available here.

*Point of care test kits use a blood sample to detect antigens or antibodies in the blood.

We encourage you to review this updated AdHelp Information on COVID-19 and Advertising Therapeutic and Health Products or Services and discard any previous versions that you may have.

If you are considering advertising a therapeutic or health related product or service and have any questions not covered by the information we have provided, we strongly recommend reaching out to the Therapeutic Advertising Pre-Vetting Service (TAPS) to help minimise the risk of a legal or code breach. Information about TAPS is available on the ANZA website. If you have any questions on advertisements outside the scope of TAPS, you can email us via asa@asa.co.nz.

If you’re a member of the public and you see an advertisement that you believe breaches the codes, please use our complaints form. If you are an advertiser, use our competitor complaints process.

If the Complaints Board upholds a complaint, the advertiser will be asked to remove the advertising.

We are happy to help with any ad standards queries and work with you to support responsible advertising.