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A teenage girl sleeps in a hig fever,suffering from Malaria in South Sudan, Africa Julien Behal/PA Archive/Press Association Images

One third of malaria drugs worldwide are fake - Lancet research

Counterfeit anti-malaria medicines are contributing to deaths across the world and also leading to drug resistance – putting billions of people at risk – according to researchers.

ONE THIRD OF the drugs used worldwide to combat malaria are counterfeit, according to a study by leading medical journal The Lancet.

Up to one million people, mostly children, die every year from malaria.

Over the past decade, more than a third of anti-malaria drugs tested in regions where the killer-disease is prevalent, such as Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, has been shown to be either fake or of seriously bad quality.

Health experts have explained that the problem is two-fold: as well as fake medicine contributing to the deaths of those who rely on them due to ineffectiveness, poor-quality drugs that contain small amounts of active ingredients – but not enough to destroy harmful microorganisms – can lead to drug resistance.

There is no suitable alternative to the artemisinin-based drugs currently used to combat malaria; if this ingredient were to stop working, up to 3.3 billion people worldwide would be put at risk of infection from the mosquito-transmitted disease, according to the review.

Such drug resistance has rendered medicines once used to treat malaria useless.

Increased resistance has been noted in recent years in places such as western Cambodian-Burmese border.

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The Lancet research found that, of the 1437 samples of drugs in five classes from seven countries in southeast Asiam 497 (35 per cent) failed chemical analysis. A further 423 (46 per cent) of 919 failed packaging analysis, and 450 (36 per cent) of 1260 were classified as falsified.

In 21 surveys of drugs from six classes from 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 796 (35 per cent) of 2297 failed chemical analysis, 28 (36 per cent) of 77 failed packaging analysis, and 79 (20 per cent) of 389 were classified as falsified.

The research has led to urgent calls for a strong international commitment to tackle drug counterfeiting, much of which occurs in China.

According to researchers, the factors contributing to the production and trade of poor-quality antimalarial drugs are:

  • Expensive drugs with large profit margins
  • Widespread self-prescription
  • Difficulty in testing for quality
  • Trade that occurs in free-trade zones or free ports with minimum regulation
  • National and global drug legislation being poor or absent, with lax implementation and quality control and few legal penalties
  • Scarcity of political will and cooperation from stakeholders
  • Proliferation of small pharmaceutical companies without adequate quality assurance
  • Poor consumer and health-care worker knowledge about product authenticity
  • Stockouts, thefts, and the erratic supply of antimalarial drugs

Read the full research finding by the Lancet>

The Lancet notes that a technical glitch has resulted in a temporary delay in the report being made available online – it will be accessible shortly via the link above

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5 Comments
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    Mute Paul Corcoran
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    Oct 11th 2018, 6:40 PM

    But will anything actually happen Callinan now?

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    Mute bmul
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    Oct 11th 2018, 6:50 PM

    @Paul Corcoran: no he probably has to much dirt on those in power

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    Mute Johnny Mason
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    Oct 11th 2018, 6:50 PM

    @Paul Corcoran: after he apologizes they will ask him to pay for the car park tickets he owes that took place in the dark of night !

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    Mute @mdmak33
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:04 PM

    Surely callinan will be brought to the courts,this nearly destroyed sgt mc cabe and his family.

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    Mute Mari
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    Oct 11th 2018, 8:16 PM

    Very well written article .. it was a great read

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    Mute stgdsf
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    Oct 11th 2018, 9:26 PM

    @Mari: yes excellent summary

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    Mute Jack O’Meara
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:20 PM

    I’d like to see more light thrown in Terry Prone’s role in all this…

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    Mute Lovely weather
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:08 PM

    An organisation so corrupt they consider it normal.

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    Mute Tony Maher
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    Oct 11th 2018, 7:25 PM

    just back from Cold war tour of Berlin. visited Stazi prisons. sick to the stomach that this did happen here too.

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    Mute Chris Scarffe-Cody
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    Oct 11th 2018, 10:20 PM

    No obviously nobody will be held to account that’s not the way it works, it’s the ah sure that’s grand mentality and until that changes nothing else ever will

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    Mute Sean Conway
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    Oct 11th 2018, 9:26 PM

    It looks like ‘the lunatics have taken over the asylum’ a long time ago here in ireland. as the song says.

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    Mute Smidgen Dublin
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    Oct 12th 2018, 10:34 AM

    I don’t understand The Journal’s writing standards, e.g,.: ‘…and the usual ‘watch out huns’ Christmas edition wasn’t going to cut it..’. What is this?!?

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    Mute Bewarethebeardz
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    Nov 14th 2018, 8:17 AM

    Will Callinan be charged with anything? Perjury, Fraud, Frame-up, Collusion etc. Or does he just sail off into the sunset?
    Please say it isn’t so.

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