E-DRUG: Medical Product Quality Report: COVID-19 issues // Issue 4 - September
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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 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 forth issue, covering the month of September 2020 is available now and
reports 59 different incidents/issues of SF products from searches in
Google News. It is out at
https://www.iddo.org/document/medical-product-quality-report-covid-19-issues-issue-4-september-2020-main-text.
We found articles on substandard remdesivir and a falsified COVID-19
vaccine in India. We see a growing awareness of SF hand sanitizers in Nepal
and an increase in articles related to SF masks in Taiwan. Other worrying
phenomena are reflected by alerts on used medical gloves and masks that are
repacked and sold. As we, hopefully, move closer to having COVID-19
vaccine(s) available, urgent discussion is needed for optimizing risk based
surveillance to prevent, detect and respond to the inevitable SF vaccines.
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>