Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Counterfeit Medicines
Drug Giants Accused of Ignoring Fake Medicines that Kill Millions
by Saeed Shah
The world?s major drug companies have been accused of turning a blind eye to the multibillion-dollar trade in fake medicine that has resulted in an explosion of child malaria deaths in developing countries.
Governments have not tackled the problem and pharmaceutical companies are burying the issue, afraid that any publicity given to their medicines being faked will lead to a fall in the sale of the genuine product, according to a documentary.
The problem has been particularly acute with the treatment of malaria in Africa, with anti-malaria drugs faked on an industrial scale.
Professor Nick White, of Oxford University, one of the world?s Leading Experts on Malaria, said: ?We estimate that there are more than 1 million deaths each year - which is the equivalent of 7 jumbo jets going down every day. And 90% of those deaths are in Children.?
Professor White said that counterfeit medicine was a major reason why malaria had become, over the past 30 years, Africa?s biggest child killer, from an illness that used to be easily treated with medicines.
Some of the fake drugs contain NO medicine at all, but others have tiny traces of the real ingredients - which leads to another, potentially bigger problem: it allows the malaria parasite to build up resistance to the drug.
"Malaria should not kill people". It?s a curable disease. But if the patient uses the wrong drug - either because they are fake or they are ineffective because of higher resistance - then they are lying here with complications.
?And in children, young children, the time between a mild disease and a severe disease can be as little as eight hours, or 24 hours or 12 hours. So time is of the huge essence here. You really cannot afford to try some other drug before trying a good one. You can?t. Because you don?t have that time.?
The drugs don?t work
~ Counterfeit medicines are swamping unregulated markets in developing nations with unknown and sometimes fatal results. Not only are thousands dying needlessly, but patients are also becoming immune to the effects of the real thing. Counterfeit drugs occasionally contain small doses of the active ingredient - enough to induce resistance
~ The UN World Health Organisation estimates the incidence of counterfeit medicines is about 10 per cent in developing countries, with prevalence higher where regulatory control is weakest. But in many parts of Africa, according to the WHO, as well as in some countries in Latin America and South Asia, prevalence sits at around 30 per cent. The patients hit are the sickest and the poorest.
~ WHO estimates that 200,000 of the one million malaria deaths every year would be prevented if all the drugs taken were genuine. The popularity of combination malaria drugs - which are more expensive than other treatments - has seen counterfeit peddlers cash in on the opportunity to boost sales. In Cambodia, Tanzania and Cameroon, up to 90 per cent of such drugs on sale in local markets are believed to contain nothing but chalk or maize flour.
As recently as 2001, about 68% of medicines in circulation in Nigeria were unregistered, and as much as 41% were believed to be fake.
www.islamicity.com
by Saeed Shah
The world?s major drug companies have been accused of turning a blind eye to the multibillion-dollar trade in fake medicine that has resulted in an explosion of child malaria deaths in developing countries.
Governments have not tackled the problem and pharmaceutical companies are burying the issue, afraid that any publicity given to their medicines being faked will lead to a fall in the sale of the genuine product, according to a documentary.
The problem has been particularly acute with the treatment of malaria in Africa, with anti-malaria drugs faked on an industrial scale.
Professor Nick White, of Oxford University, one of the world?s Leading Experts on Malaria, said: ?We estimate that there are more than 1 million deaths each year - which is the equivalent of 7 jumbo jets going down every day. And 90% of those deaths are in Children.?
Professor White said that counterfeit medicine was a major reason why malaria had become, over the past 30 years, Africa?s biggest child killer, from an illness that used to be easily treated with medicines.
Some of the fake drugs contain NO medicine at all, but others have tiny traces of the real ingredients - which leads to another, potentially bigger problem: it allows the malaria parasite to build up resistance to the drug.
"Malaria should not kill people". It?s a curable disease. But if the patient uses the wrong drug - either because they are fake or they are ineffective because of higher resistance - then they are lying here with complications.
?And in children, young children, the time between a mild disease and a severe disease can be as little as eight hours, or 24 hours or 12 hours. So time is of the huge essence here. You really cannot afford to try some other drug before trying a good one. You can?t. Because you don?t have that time.?
The drugs don?t work
~ Counterfeit medicines are swamping unregulated markets in developing nations with unknown and sometimes fatal results. Not only are thousands dying needlessly, but patients are also becoming immune to the effects of the real thing. Counterfeit drugs occasionally contain small doses of the active ingredient - enough to induce resistance
~ The UN World Health Organisation estimates the incidence of counterfeit medicines is about 10 per cent in developing countries, with prevalence higher where regulatory control is weakest. But in many parts of Africa, according to the WHO, as well as in some countries in Latin America and South Asia, prevalence sits at around 30 per cent. The patients hit are the sickest and the poorest.
~ WHO estimates that 200,000 of the one million malaria deaths every year would be prevented if all the drugs taken were genuine. The popularity of combination malaria drugs - which are more expensive than other treatments - has seen counterfeit peddlers cash in on the opportunity to boost sales. In Cambodia, Tanzania and Cameroon, up to 90 per cent of such drugs on sale in local markets are believed to contain nothing but chalk or maize flour.
As recently as 2001, about 68% of medicines in circulation in Nigeria were unregistered, and as much as 41% were believed to be fake.
www.islamicity.com