PHA-Exchange> WHO launches drive to stamp out fake drugs

[Aviva]

A new drive to stamp out the growing problem of substandard and
counterfeit medicines in six south-east Asian countries is being
launched
this week by the World Health Organisation.

Counterfeiting, mostly of antibiotics and drugs used to treat
tuberculosis, malaria and Aids, is widespread in Burma, Cambodia,
China,
Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, which make up the greater Mekong area, the
WHO
says. The use by poor people of low quality or counterfeit drugs with
little or no therapeutic value "often leads to death".

"Combating low quality or illegal medicines is now more important than
ever. Expanding access to safe, effective treatment for Aids and other
illnesses is no longer an option, it is an imperative," Lee Jong-wook,
the
WHO's director-general, said yesterday.

A meeting of the six countries in Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, is expected
to
agree tomorrow on a series of joint activities to curb counter-
feiting,
including public information and advocacy campaigns and the
strengthening
of drug inspection and market surveillance.

Figures are hard to come by but random testing of drug samples in
Vietnam
and Burma showed 8 per cent and 16 per cent respectively were
substandard,
the WHO says. A study in south-east Asia in 2001 revealed that 38 per
cent
of 104 antimalarial drugs on sale in pharmacies did not contain any
active
ingredients.

The United Nations health agency says counterfeiting is a huge
worldwide
industry worth more than Dollars 32bn (Euros 28bn, Pounds 19bn) in
sales.
According to estimates by the US Food and Drug Administration,
counterfeits account for more than 10 per cent of the global medicines
market while in poor countries up to a quarter of all medicines sold
may
be counterfeit or substandard.

In the industrialised world new expensive lifestyle drugs, such as
hormones, steroids and antihistamines, are the biggest targets for
counterfeiting. Viagra, widely sold over the internet, "is one of the
most
counterfeited drugs today".

In poor countries the targets are more likely to be drugs for killer
diseases such as TB, malaria and Aids, as well as other essential
medicines. The WHO estimates that as many as a fifth of the 1m annual
deaths from malaria worldwide may be the result of taking ineffective
drugs. The agency fears the problem may increase as more complex
medicines
are recommended to combat drug-resistant forms of the disease.

A recent study in The Lancet, the medical journal, concluded that up to
40
per cent of artusenate products used to treat resistant malaria
contained
no active ingredients.

A WHO survey of antimalarials in seven African countries found that
between 20 and 90 per cent of the products, both locally produced and
imported, failed quality testing.

In the worst cases, fake medicines can be not just useless but
poisonous,
WHO notes, citing the 89 deaths in Haiti in 1995 from using paracetamol
cough syrup containing antifreeze. www.who.int