E-DRUG: WHO web-based early warning system for counterfeits
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[Anyone with more info about this WHO counterfeit offensive?
Crossposted with thanks from Druginfo. WB]
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesNEW/topstories/topstories1115097960.aspx
World Health Organisation tackles fake drugs business
Tuesday May 03, 2005 07:26 - (SA)
MANILA - The World Health Organisation is to harness the power of the Internet in
its war on the 35-billion-dollar a year counterfeit drug business with the setting
up of a web-based rapid alert system, the global health body said today.
The WHO Western Pacific regional headquarters here said in a statement it would
unveil details of the system tomorrow, said to be the world's first web-based system
for tracking the activities of drug cheats.
"The rapid alert system communications network will transmit reports on the
distribution of counterfeit medicine to the relevant authorities for them to take
rapid counter-measures," it said.
National health authorities and other partner agencies will be linked to the
system.
"The rapid alert system will considerably strengthen our hand against the
counterfeiters," Budiono Santoso, WHO's regional adviser in Pharmaceuticals for the
Western Pacific Region, said.
According to the WHO between six and 10 percent of all medicine on the world market
is reported to be counterfeit with estimated sales of more than 35 billion dollars a
year.
The problem is most serious in developing countries, including the Mekong river
region of Southeast Asia.
"Counterfeit medicine can result in prolonged illness or death as well as wastage
of health-care resources," the statement said.
"Fake drugs containing lethal ingredients can also result in death.
"A study undertaken in Mekong countries in 2001 indicated that more than one third
of antimalarial artesunate products in Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic
Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam contained no active ingredients," the
statement said.
"A follow-up study in 2004 showed that the situation had worsened, with 99 out of
188 artesunate samples found to be counterfeit."
The WHO said counterfeit medicine was often distributed across national boundaries.
"Effective measures to protect people from counterfeit drugs require collaboration
and co-ordination among relevant stakeholders in each country, between member
countries and relevant partner organisations," the statement said.
According to WHO data some eight percent of drugs bought from pharmacies in the
Philippines in 1999 were fake.
In 2001 some 64 percent of antimalarial pills collected in an investigation did not
contain the active ingredient, and led to the death of patients in Vietnam.
In 2003 national drug-testing laboratories in Phnom Penh and Bangkok looked at 230
samples of 24 pharmaceuticals purchased on the Cambodian market in 2000, including
antibiotics and painkillers.
About 3.5 percent of them contained less than 60 percent of the labelled quantity
of active ingredient. When the study was repeated in 2003, 11 percent of the samples
fell into this category, while some contained the wrong ingredient, the WHO said.
In Nigeria and Pakistan, according to the WHO, counterfeit drugs accounted for
between 40 and 50 percent of the total market.
AFP