# E-DRUG: Drug donations **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [September 7, 1995, 12:09pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-drug-donations/25 "1995-09-07T12:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wilbertb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/53a042/32.png) [@wilbertb](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/wilbertb)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 1995, 12:09pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-drug-donations/25/1 "1995-09-07T12:09:16Z")
This press release on drug donations may interest you. Please send comments or ideas for further action to Mr. Bas van der Heide at email wemos@antenna.nl kind regards, Wilbert Bannenberg EMBARGOED FOR 8 SEPTEMBER HEALTH: Drug Donations May Not Be Appropriate Aid An Inter Press Service Feature by Judith Perera Sept. 8 (IPS) -- Collections of unused drugs sent to developing countries and Eastern Europe as aid are often not appropriate and sometimes dangerous, according to two letters in today's British Medical Journal. One letter by Bas van der Heide, a project officer with the Wemos Foundation in Amsterdam, and Erik Schouten of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in the Netherlands noted that technically the export of unused drugs issued to patients and returned to pharmacies is illegal under European Union law. However, there are many loopholes in the legislation and many NGOs, with the best of intentions, have launched campaigns to collect these and then send them abroad as aid. "Long experience with these donations has shown that the distribution of unused drugs that have been collected is inappropriate," says the letter.     "People want to help rather than wasting drugs," says Bas van der Heide, "but this is not the best way to deal with the drug problems faced by developing countries or Eastern Europe. There are better ways for willing doctors and pharmacists to use their efforts."     There are plenty of examples of how drug donations can be counter- productive for recipient countries. Last November, for example, a Dutch MSF team in Djibouti faced with a serious cholera epidemic received a drug donations from a French NGO. "These were mainly anti-diarrhoea drugs which are not used for cholera where the main problem is dehydration," explains van der Heide. But among the 100 unsorted and partly expired drugs in the consignment there were no oral rehydration solutions or intravenous fluids. The only useful drugs were a few antibiotics -- 12 co-trimoxazole tablets. However a lot of valuable time was lost sorting through the drugs and later disposing of them.     Another example occurred in Lithuania in 1993 when 11 women were temporarily blinded as a result of taking a drug provided as part of a donation. The drug was an anti-helminthic veterinary product which had mistakenly been used to treat a gynaecological condition called endometriosis. The drug had arrived without proper product information and doctors had tried to identify it by matching the name on the box with names on leaflets for other products.     But this is not just a recent phenomenon. After the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala some 7,000 boxes of mixed drugs arrived. It took 40 pharmacy students over six months to sort all these and in the end only 10 per cent were found to be relevant to the country's needs.     The extent of the problem became clearer in 1991 when a French organisation, Pharmaciens Sans Frontieres organised a campaign to collect unused medicines for use in international aid programmes. Over 4 million kilograms were collected from over 4,000 pharmacies in France and a massive sorting operation was organised in 88 centres. Of the total only 20 per cent were found to be useful. The others were either expired or inappropriate and 80 per cent were burned. It would have been cheaper to simply buy badly needed essential drugs direct from suppliers and this is now what PSF does.     When pharmacists in the Netherlands started a similar scheme last year the Wemos Foundation contacted them and explained the situation. Wemos, a Dutch NGO established in 1981 to promote health and development, has been campaigning hard fro European legislation to prevent the export of substandard drugs.      WHO has drawn up guidelines for drug donations. These stipulate that donations should be based on a specified need of the recipient and should be on either the national or WHO list of essential drugs. They should be of good quality and have at least a year to go before expiry. They should not be drugs returned unused to pharmacies or doctors' free samples, and they should be properly packaged and labelled.     The main problem now is to explain the situation to small NGOs and discuss other ways in which they can help, says Bas van der Heide. The issue has been discussed in the Dutch parliament and the government has now stated explicitly that the collection of unused drugs for donation is not acceptable. He hopes that other European governments will follow this example.    There is also a problem on the demand side, he adds, with some countries not specifying accurately what they need. However, other countries have a drugs policy in place and drug donations which do not follow WHO guidelines do not help them to implement those policies. "Developing countries have many needs apart from drugs, and it may be better to do other things. Supplying drugs requires a lot of experience to properly assess a specific request and a pharmacists needs to be on hand to dispense drugs properly." > Wemos, Amsterdam (Organisation for Health and Development Issues) > Visits: Nieuwe Looiersdwarsstraat 15,1017 TZ Amsterdam, Netherlands > Mail: Postbus 1693,1000 BR Amsterdam, Netherlands > Tel. +31.20.420.2222 Fax. +31.20.620.5094 > e-mail wemos@antenna.nl Wilbert Bannenberg, public health consultant CHD - Consultants for Health and Development Brederodestraat 5, 1054 MP Amsterdam, The Netherlands tel +31-20-6854659 fax +31-20-6891233 email wilbertb@xs4all.nl