E-DRUG: Indian substandard products in Africa (8)
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Dear Dr. Wiegand and others,
Indeed boosting drug testing capacity using fully-fledged or basic analytical techniques for post-marketing drug quality verification first helps in the detection of harmful counterfeit medicines containing the false, too much, too little or no drug at all.
Secondly, once everybody knows that the testing capacity is on the ground almost everywhere it works also as a good deterrent.
I hope that the recent detection of zero quinine content antimalarials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will trigger of more testing activities and will help in spreading the word that counterfeiters can also be caught out even when dealing with spurious medicines deep in the Congo. See also story about ...
... fatal counterfeit antimalarial tablets detected in Congo published at
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151137226149666.462939.182507359665&type=1
Recently, the German Institute of Medical Mission (DIFÄM) informed its partner organisations about the existence of counterfeit quinine tablets detected in the Democratic Republic of Congo. All declarations on the label had been forged, for example, source, content and batch number. The label pretends that the tablets were manufactured by Shelys in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) but the batch number 880 is not on their records. Minilab assays proved the almost complete absence of quinine and the existence of an unknown compound. As the counterfeit tablets are associated with failed malaria treatments including death of patients, it is also assumed that the tablets did not contain any antimalarial drug. In the meantime, the fake products have been taken from the shelves and all stakeholders, for example, local drug authorities, the World Health Organization and members of the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network have been informed about the fatal product.
A second case of counterfeit antimalarial tablets, again with zero quinine content, has been detected by some other Minilab users in Africa throughout the summer. Investigations are pending, one person has been jailed already. Both cases prove the importance of regular post-marketing drug quality testing and the use of simple and affordable thin layer chromatography for the detection of unsafe bogus medicines in particular in places and countries where strong drug regulatory authorities and fully-fledged drug testing labs are missing.
With best regards
Richard Jähnke, PhD
Project Management
Global Pharma Health Fund e.V. (GPHF)
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