False drugs, false hope, real danger

Lazarus Sauti

Reflecting on the World Anti-Counterfeiting Day recently, Joseph Y. Yun, United States Ambassador to Malaysia says counterfeit medications are raising false hope and pose a threat to those who take them.

He asserts that besides raising phony hope, these false drugs are putting lives of those who take them at real danger as they are killing them.

“Counterfeiters are killing people and are making deadly diseases like malaria even stronger,” notes Yun, adding that “the global counterfeit drug trade, a billion-dollar industry, is mostly thriving in Asia and Africa.

Affirming Yun’s assertion, the World Health Organisation – a specialised agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health – states that more than half a million people died from malaria in 2012 and 20 per cent of those deaths are attributed to false or sub-standard medication.

WHO also adds that most of those deaths occurred in Africa.

Jocelyne Sambira, a digital media concentrator, agrees: “Markets in African countries are flooded with fake and poor-quality drugs, and as a result this is putting lives of Africans at great risk. The proliferation of fake, falsified and sub-standard drugs in African countries has had tragic consequences. A trip to the pharmacy seems like a game of Russian roulette. If you pick a wrong box, it could literally mean your death.”

Because of this and other reasons, the World Health Organisation expert on malaria and tropical parasitic diseases since 1974 and a member of 12 scientific societies in the field of Tropical medicine, Parasitology, Mycology, Immunology and Epidemiology, Professor Pierre Ambrose-Thomas, notes that drug counterfeiting is more than a criminal act.

“Man-slaughter is perfectly justified to describe such an act although some prefer calling it simply murder,” writes Ambrose-Thomas in the Mediterranean Journal of Haematology and Infectious Diseases, an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal, which encompasses different aspects of clinical and translational research providing an insight into the relationship between acute and chronic infections and hematological diseases.

Meanwhile, many factors such as the cost of drugs, lack of training, insufficient manpower, bribes and brown envelopes – corruption are contributing immensely towards the problem of drug counterfeiting in the continent of Africa.

Sambira explains: “Deficiencies in training, inadequate manpower and corruption often plague national regulatory agencies in charge of licensing and regulating drugs. More so, government inspectors frequently accept bribes and kick-backs to allow fake drugs to pass borders and this is putting lives of Africans in real danger.”

Sharing same sentiments, the World Health Organisation notes: “The efficiency of personnel is adversely affected by bribes, corruption and conflict of interest resulting in laws not being properly enforced and criminals not being arrested, prosecuted and convicted for their crimes.”

As a result, African governments need to develop strategies to reduce corruption and arrest other problems that are promoting the increase of counterfeit drugs. Together with other stakeholders in the health fraternity, they must come up with solid mechanisms to train, license and regulate illegal drug vendors.

This means that instead of arresting them, they should embark on current awareness programmes to educate illegal drug vendors and consumers about the real dangers posed by buying and using counterfeit drugs.

Fighting counterfeit drugs in countries within and across the African continent requires a whole-of-society approach to be effective. Health authorities cannot do it alone. They need cooperation from customs, police, the judiciary, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, health professionals, and the patients themselves. Thus, African governments through relevant ministries and departments should spearhead efforts to stop the movement of counterfeit drugs between borders.

As biggest stakeholders, they should also promote regional coordination to effectively halt the problem. Governments should work with pharmaceutical companies to simply strengthen cooperation with other organisations and drug distributors, and to trace imported counterfeit drugs and fish them off the market.

As information and Communication Technologies are playing major roles in improving the lives of people, African countries must adopt them to fight against counterfeits drugs in the continent. They must invest in modern technologies that can be used to analyse the chemical composition of drugs and help to spot ‘bad drugs’.

The good news for African countries though is that the World Health Organisation is helping them to develop the expertise needed to regulate drugs through drug registration.

According to the organisation, drug registration, also called marketing authorisation or product licensing, is a thorough evaluation to ensure a drug is safe for consumption.

“Manufacturing, storage and distribution must follow strict guidelines. Without registration, the drugs cannot be marketed,” notes the World Health Organisation, adding that “to fast-track registration, the World Health Organisation encourages national regulatory authorities to choose medicines from its list of pre-qualified products.”

The World Health Organisation, however, says it is up to the individual countries to decide to register a product or not.