Tanzania: Counterfeit drugs put lives at risk

DAR ES SALAAM, 15 January 2009 (IRIN) - But the most dangerous counterfeits are the imitation medicines sold to unwitting consumers. In Tanzania and across the developing world, the business of fake drugs is booming. A 2006 report by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in developing countries in Africa, and in parts of Asia and Latin America, up to 30 percent of medicines on the market are counterfeit.

“People are interested in getting a profit, but this is a human rights issue,” said Edith Ngirwamungu, president of the Medical Association of Tanzania. “The consequences of this business are really immense. Take, for example, a person with severe malaria: if he or she cannot access the genuine drug, then it means they may die.”

She said that inefficacy of counterfeit pharmaceuticals also made some Tanzanians lose confidence in crucial medicines, such as antiretrovirals for people living with HIV/AIDS.

“By having these counterfeit drugs, it makes people fearful of conventional drugs and revert back to traditional drugs,” Ngirwamungu told IRIN.

Counterfeit drugs are designed to fool consumers by using misleading packaging and mimicking the shape, colour, size and imprints of genuine drugs. Fake drugs sold in Tanzania's markets include knock-offs of so-called “lifestyle” drugs, such as those for erectile dysfunction and weight loss. But there are also imitations of life-saving pharmaceuticals, including anti-malarial and anti-cancer drugs. Often, counterfeits contain just trace amounts of the purported active ingredients, and sometimes no active ingredients at all. But they are usually difficult to identify without a laboratory test.

“We've found that most pharmaceuticals don't have the content and quality of the drugs we'd expected,” said Hussein Kamote, director of policy and advocacy at the Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI), a trade group that issued a report lambasting Tanzania's thriving counterfeit market. He said when the group recently tested a batch of anti-malaria capsules, they contained only wheat flour.

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