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| Counterfeit drugs around the World |
It is well known
that fake drugs cost a lot of lives in developing countries, where it is a home
of most of fake drugs. This has been a serious challenge to the integrity of
public health systems as well as serious threat to the national security in
these countries and probably is a major cause of death (from curable diseases)
than anything else.
Of recent, in
Tanzania, the Minister of Health and social Welfare , Dr. Hussein Mwinyi suspended top officials of the Medical sores department (MSD) and halted the
production of all drugs by TPI ( alleged to have manufactured fake ARVs) to
allow investigation to take place. He also urged
all people under medication to continue using ARVs drugs because they are safe
as the fake ones have already been removed from the hospitals.
It is by now a
public knowledge that most of the drugs produced locally are of low quality due
to the widespread corruption in political circles in the country. Also, the
fact that global counterfeit black market thrives better in poor countries,
makes Tanzania vulnerable in all aspects. The profits from this “crime” are
being co-opted by an array of organised criminal groups, who see that this the
only way they can survive.
Although the
Minister of Health and social welfare has assured the public that the drugs
that are in the market today are of good quality, critics can still think that
the MSD officials who were suspended are the ones who know exactly what the
public is consuming. Earlier this year I posted an article on fake malaria drugs circulating in the country. The issue here is; who exactly knows the network behind
these fake drugs in the country? How can we make our medicines safe? What about
the patients who have consumed these fake drugs? The first question might
probably be answered by the committee formed by the Minister. I am not sure
about the remaining questions!
It has been
always said (at least by most policy makers) that having appropriate policies and
adequate power to reinforce the policies is the only way to control these
crimes. This might be true at least in theory. Corruption has made the aforementioned
statement useless because people who are supposed to make (guide the
formulation of) such policies and reinforce are the ones who are involved in
these criminal networks. I think, it is a time now for the consumers (the
victims) to do something rather than waiting for committees or flawed expert
reports. Here you are talking of about 500,000 Tanzanians who are on Antiretroviral therapy
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