Latest News
02-Nov-2009Gambia: GPHF trained drug authorities in using its Minilab
The Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF), a charitable organisation initiated and maintained by Merck Darmstadt (Germany), just recently trained eight staff members of The Gambia National Pharmaceutical Services (NPS) in the use of the Minilab in Kotu near Serekunda. Donated by the GPHF and based at the Central Medical Stores, two mini-laboratories will now help the Gambian health authorities to detect counterfeit medicines containing wrong, to little or no active ingredients. International Health Partners from Great Britain will support a first drug quality monitoring study on antimalarials.
13-Oct-2009
Benin: Chirac enters fight against counterfeit medicines
Yesterday, in a meeting of leading African politicians in Benin’s capital of Cotonou, former French President Jacques Chirac called for actions against counterfeit medicines proliferation in Africa. Copycat medication without any drugs are filled with empty hopes only and do not cure. The full Cotonou Declaration Against Fake Medicines can be viewed at the Chirac Foundation.
12-Oct-2009
Cambodia: Fighting counterfeit medicines with TV spots and Minilabs
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) launched a series of public service announcements on counterfeit medicines in Phnom Penh last week. First broadcasted on national television in Cambodia subsequent translations into other languages will help also to spread the word throughout all countries of the Greater Mekong region. As the proliferation of counterfeit and substandard quality medicines cannot be stopped and monitored easily “we will continue to support the Minilabs in the provinces and the main lab in the national capital of Phnom Penh” said Flynn Fuller, USAID Cambodia Mission director during the premiere event in Phnom Penh’s Meta House.
10-Sep-2009
Uganda be Riddled with Counterfeit Medicines
Tons of counterfeit antimalarials and antibacterials containing wrong or no active ingredients have been seized and destroyed in Uganda (East Africa) last week - just after the finish of a sustained monitoring operation mounted by Interpol together with the National Drug Authorities and IMPACT, the anti-counterfeiting taskforce led by the World Health Organization (WHO). Among the drugs seized were chloroquine, quinine, amodiaquine, sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine, cotrimoxazole und chloramphenicol – all of them life-saving medicines if not counterfeited and of substandard quality. This concerns also faith-based drug supply where cases of spurious quinine preparations have been detected with the GPHF-Minilab earlier this year.
24-Aug-2009
West African Countries Victims and Hub of Counterfeit Medicines
An assessment of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna from July this year now puts the dangers of trade in counterfeit medicines next to the dangers of illegal trade in narcotic drugs, weapons, toxic waste, cigarettes, oil and work force and takes them as a serious threat for countries in the West Africa region and the rest of the world. Lacking laws or poor enforcement of existing legislation are making the trade in counterfeit medicines much easier here in Africa. The majority of people stay completely unprotected against this immense threat to health and life.
27-Jul-2009
Ghana: Counterfeit Antimalarial Coartem® Contains No Active Whatsoever
Global implementation of artemisinine-based antimalarial combination therapy, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), enhances counterfeiting activities accordingly. Last week, the technical assistance programme of the United States Pharmacopeia (USP DQI) submitted samples of counterfeit Coartem® identified as lacking any of both its active ingredients artemether and lumefantrine to the authorities of Ghana. Within its Medicines Quality Monitoring program USP DQI maintains five sentinel sites in this West African country. Since the Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF) supplied its mini-laboratories to these sites in January this year, patients nearby now have access to a quick quality check of non-effective antimalarials locally. Here, suspicious samples can be processed on neutral ground thus bypassing local conflicts of interest.
17-Jul-2009
Namibia: HIV/AIDS programme embeds GPHF-Minilabs
Management Sciences for Health (MSH) recently ordered four GPHF-Minilabs in order to secure the supply of quality antiretroviral medicines in Namibia. Starting next month already, the Minilabs will be used to monitor antiretroviral drug quality in the market and help in preventing counterfeit medicines of substandard quality entering the supply chain for HIV/AIDS programmes.
20-May-2009
Cambodia: Counterfeit Antimalarials Help Foster Drug Resistance
In western Cambodia, counterfeit antimalarials are helping to breed a plasmodium strain that resists even the most-effective medicine. The development threatens to roll back malaria and creates a sort of biological time bomb the World Health Organization (WHO) plans to defuse with a screening and treatment programme to contain and eliminate the multi-resistant strain in the course of this year.
12-May-2009
Influenza
EU Warning: Criminal groups may take advantage from influenza outbreak and sell counterfeit medicines via the internet.
The European Medicines Evalution Authority (EMEA) and National Competent Authorities in the Member States warn that criminal groups may take advantage of the current outbreak of the A/H1N1 influenza virus to sell fake, adulterated or unauthorised antiviral medication or vaccines via the Internet. Members of the public who buy counterfeit or illicit copies of these medicines may be putting their own health, or that of their families, at risk.
17-Feb-2009
Mekong region: educational video advert on counterfeit antimalarials
The broad distribution of counterfeit antimalarials in Mekong countries has well been identified using the GPHF-Minilab and other technologies. Later, an enforcement campaign lead by Interpol seized about 25,000 packages of fake artesunate finally traced back to clandestine operations in China (see Operation Jupiter below). An educational video advertisement produced by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Pharmacopeia Drug Quality and Information Program (USP DQI) now warns the general public in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos about the lethal outcome of counterfeit antimalarial pills.
Note that Windows Media Player or similar software will be required to access the videos.
25-Nov-2008
Operation Mamba: Authorities seized hundreds of different brands of counterfeit medicines including antimalarials in Tanzania and Uganda
17-Nov-2008
Operation Storm: Interpol seizes counterfeit medicines worth $6.65 million in South East Asia
15-Feb-2008
Operation Jupiter: Dust and pollen particles in counterfeit drugs expose offenders in China
14-Feb-2008
Toxic counterfeit cold medicine in Panama
Panamanian investigators said that 115 people were fatally poisoned by taking counterfeit cold medicine containing the toxic antifreezing agent diethylene glycol. Later in the UK, the same toxic agent emerged in tainted toothpaste from China.
03-Dec-2007
Counterfeit medicines reporting in UK
The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reports cases of counterfeit medicines on its homepage.
03-Dec-2007
OECD warns about counterfeit medicines proliferation
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a report documenting the global proliferation of counterfeit medicines. In one case, a counterfeit medicine travelled from China across the world and was subsequently distributed in no less than 42 different countries.
More information on the OECD report can be found here.
