Over 600 Telegram groups advertising or selling vapes taken down since April 2024

HSA actively monitoring and enforcing ban on ads and sales of vapes, online and offline

- Nadine Chua

More than 600 Telegram groups advertising or selling vapes and Kpods to Singaporeans have been taken down by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA).

The agency said on July 16 that these channels promoting vapes have been removed since April 2024.

This is the first time HSA is releasing figures on the number of Telegram groups being taken down for selling vapes.

In May 2025, HSA and the Ministry of Health said in a statement that more than 6,800 online listings of vapes and their related components were removed from e-commerce and social media platforms from January 2024 to March 2025.

The figure is more than double the 3,100 listings removed in 2023.

Those platforms included Facebook, Instagram and Carousell, but not Telegram.

On July 16, HSA said its Tobacco Regulation Branch has been actively monitoring and enforcing the ban on advertisements and sales of vapes, both offline and online.

The agency said that using automated tools, it actively tracks online listings, social media posts and messaging platforms to detect and remove illegal advertisements and posts.