Counterfeit medicines are part of the broader phenomenon of substandard pharmaceuticals - medicines manufactured below established standards of quality and therefore dangerous to patients’ health and ineffective for the treatment of diseases. The difference is that counterfeits are deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity or source. Counterfeiting occurs both with branded and generic products and counterfeit medicines may include products with the correct ingredients but fake packaging, with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients or with insufficient active ingredients.
A global public health crisis
Counterfeit medicines represent an enormous public health challenge. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can come across medicines seemingly packaged in the right way, in the form of tablets or capsules that look right, but which do not contain the correct ingredients and, in the worst case scenario, may be filled with highly toxic substances. In some countries, this is a rare occurrence, in others, it is an everyday reality.
Counterfeit medicines range from random mixtures of harmful toxic substances to inactive, useless preparations. Occasionally, there can be “high quality” fakes that do contain the declared active ingredient. In all cases, contents of counterfeits are unreliable because their source is unknown or vague and always illegal. Fake drugs can cause harm to patients and sometimes lead to death.
Any kind of product can be and has been counterfeited: expensive lifestyle and anti-cancer medicines, antibiotics, medicines for hypertension and cholesterol lowering drugs, hormones, steroids and inexpensive generic versions of simple pain killers and antihistamines. In developing countries the most disturbing issue is the common availability of counterfeited medicines for the treatment of life-threatening conditions such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
Counterfeit medicines can harm and kill
The regular use of substandard or counterfeit medicines can lead to therapeutic failure or drug resistance. In some cases, it can lead to death.
A case in Argentina: In 2004, fake medicine led to a trail of death in Argentina.
Veronica Diaz was a healthy 22 year old woman, living in Viedma, Argentina, who had mild anaemia caused by insufficient iron in her blood and required her to receive iron injections. In December of 2004, she became very sick and died of liver failure after receiving the 7th of a 10 injection treatment. The medicines authority of Argentina, ANMAT, determined that she had been given a highly toxic counterfeit. Authorities were unable to determine the source of the counterfeit product due to falsified paper work. While most of the counterfeit production throughout Argentina was recovered and four persons were prosecuted, the highly fragmented distribution system prevented the recall from being 100% successful. In May of 2005 another woman died and a 22 year old pregnant woman was injected with the same counterfeit. She survived but gave birth to a 26 week premature baby. To date, Argentinean law does not consider counterfeiting medicines a crime.
Some other examples are below.
- During a meningitis epidemic in Niger in 1995, more than 50 000 people were inoculated with fake vaccines resulting in 2 500 deaths. The vaccines were received as a gift from a country which thought they were safe.
- 89 children died in Haiti in 1995 and 30 infants died in India in 1998 due to the consumption of paracetamol cough syrup prepared with diethylene glycol (a toxic chemical used in antifreeze).
- In 2001, in South-East Asia, a Wellcome Trust study revealed that 38% of 104 anti-malarial drugs on sale in pharmacies did not contain any active ingredients.
- In Cambodia, in 1999, at least 30 people died after taking counterfeit anti-malarials prepared with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (an older, less effective anti-malarial) which were sold as artesunate.
Estimates
The US based Centre for Medicines in the Public Interest predicts that counterfeit drug sales will reach US$ 75 billion globally in 2010, an increase of more than 90% from 2005.
Although precise and detailed data on counterfeit medicines is difficult to obtain, estimates range from around 1% of sales in developed countries to over 10% in developing countries, depending on the geographical area. That range takes into consideration both regional disparities in the presence of counterfeits, and specific global market value shares. Apart from the huge differences between regions, variations can also be dramatic within countries, i.e. city versus rural areas, city versus city.
Currently, the sources of information available include reports from non-governmental organizations, pharmaceutical companies, national drug regulatory and enforcement authorities, ad hoc studies conducted on specific geographical areas, and occasional surveys.
Counterfeiting is greatest in those regions where the regulatory and legal oversight is weakest.
Read the rest of this page on counterfeit medicines here.
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