E-DRUG: Medical Product Quality Report: COVID-19 issues #8 - January
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Dear colleagues,
The COVID-19 pandemic is accompanied by a multitude of reports of
substandard and falsified (SF) medical products, ranging from personal
protective equipment (PPE) to diagnostic tests, medicines, and vaccines. In
response to this, we started a system for collecting, curating, and
visualizing information available in the public domain on quality concerns
related to COVID-19 medical products. The Medical Product Quality Reports
hold reports from scientific literature, public alerts/warnings, and lay
press:
https://www.iddo.org/mq/research/medical-product-quality-reports.
The eighth issue, covering the month of January 2021, is now available and
reports on 65 different incidents of SF medical products in 53 different
articles from searches in Google News. It is out at
https://www.iddo.org/document/medical-product-quality-report-covid-19-issues-issue-8-january-2021-main-text
Across the globe, customs continue to seize unregistered and falsified
masks. In Thailand, there seems to be a growing problem with SF gloves. For
hand sanitisers, the same problems that were encountered at the beginning
of the pandemic persist, with insufficient percentages of alcohol and the
presence of methanol. In South-Africa, ivermectin seems to be increasingly
used for COVID-19 and sold on the black market even though the product is
not registered for human use. As anticipated, we have sadly seen an
increase in incidents and problems with SF COVID-19 vaccines. In January we
identified 22 different incidents of degraded, stolen or apparently
falsified COVID-19 vaccines both off- and online.
With the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines combined with other public health
interventions, people hope that 2021 will see a sustained global reduction
in the incidence of COVID-19 infections. In order to be successful,
existing and new challenges need to be tackled. Therefore, we continue
monitoring and data sharing to collect early warnings of potential problems
with substandard and falsified (SF) COVID-19 medical products.
Any remarks or additions to content are greatly appreciated
please write to
medicinequality@iddo.org
We would be delighted if you could disseminate this information within your network.
Very best wishes,
Kerlijn Van Assche, Céline Caillet, Paul N Newton
Medicine Quality Research Group, Infectious Diseases Data Observatory
(IDDO) & Mahidol Oxford Research Unit (MORU), Centre for Tropical Medicine
& Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford,
Oxford, UK
Kerlijn Van Assche <kerlijn.vanassche@iddo.org>