Fake Malaria Drugs & Looming Health Crisis

By: AllisonB | Dec 14, 2007 |  1

Categories: Health & Wellness

If Africa didn’t already have enough problems getting needed drugs, now they’re getting fake ones too.

Last night I saw The Nature of Things with David Suzuki and a report on how fake counterfeit malaria drugs from Asia are flooding into Africa. These fake drugs will help the bacteria develop resistance and eventual render good drugs useless. Not to mention the fact that people taking these drugs are dying now.

Apart from being totally CRIMINAL… it’s just another instance of ‘0’ regulation in Asian industry. Maybe that’s another topic for someone to pick up on for your Tee in Beijing contest.

Here’s the link and the excerpt from their website:
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http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/magazine2.html

Deadly Fakes takes audiences into the multi-billion dollar underworld of counterfeit drugs. It’s organized and it’s global, but it flourishes in the world’s most vulnerable places and preys on the weakest among us. In Kenya, malaria is rampant. This once curable disease has become a killer, and young children are the most susceptible. In certain regions of Kenya, 80% of children have malaria, the most common life-threatening infection in the world. The disease continues to mutate, and experts the world over are alarmed that the one fool-proof treatment that is left – A-C-T’s, or “artemisinin combination therapy,” is being compromised by greedy counterfeiters. Once fake versions of A-C-Ts start to circulate among malarial patients, it could create a drug-resistant strain of the medication. And then we’re looking at a major global health crisis. Deadly Fakes visits the frontlines of one of the world’s most frightening health scenarios.

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Had no idea about this, though I have heard that fake drugs are a real problem in China. Guess it’s not surprising though… these criminals with 0 morals will sell to anyone they can.

By: HagenDaz
posted: December 18, 2007 at 11:34 AM