Fake Drugs Industry Continues To Flourish

The United Nations is beginning to take the worldwide problem of the trade in fake drugs seriously says Professor Mohamed Izham Mohamed Ibrahim from Malaysia’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences who was given a post by the WHO to try to get to the root of the counterfeit medicine problem. He estimates that 10% of the world's drugs are fake and most of them get sold to unsuspecting people in the poorer parts of the world, but even the UK and the US are targeted sometimes too.

The most common type of drugs that are copied are erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra and most of what the health authorities find contains either no active ingredients or a type of sildenafil or taladafil that are found in Viagra and Cialis.

One particular area of Southeast Asia called the Mekong region which includes parts of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos seems to have more than its fair share of bogus drugs especially for those medications that are used to treat illnesses that have a high mortality rate like malaria. For example a well known malaria drug called artesunate which is manufacturered in China was copied extensively in the region and sold at a much reduced price to unsuspecting malaria victims who ended up dying as a result. The fake drug contained none of the active properties of the artesunate drug and had no other beneficial properties.

The trade in fake drugs is lucrative for criminals in countries that have few rules and poor enforcement with regard to the supply of medicines. In the region of Mekong the trade in fake drugs includes antibiotics, pain killers, vitamins, hormones and even steroids and the counterfeiters focus on reproducing medicines that are well known and expensive.

The problem is made worse by the fact that often drug companies are reluctant to publicise the size of the counterfeit problem because they are worried that they will damage the name of the brand if it is known that fakes exist too. In Malaysia for example the Pharmaceutical Services Division has seized 45 million ringits worth of fake drugs over the last 5 years but very little publicity is given to this and the fake medicine industry continiues to flourish in Malaysia.