By
Maxwell Awumah, GNA
Hohoe (V/R), Aug. 15, GNA – A new study from
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found that substandard and
falsified medicines, including medicines to treat malaria, are a serious
problem in many parts of the world.
In low- and middle-income countries, more than
13 percent of the essential medicines that satisfy the priority health care
needs of the population fall in this category.
Looking specifically at African countries, the
portion of substandard and falsified medicines rises to almost 19 percent.
Falsified medicines are medical products that
deliberately and fraudulently misrepresent their identity, composition or
source.
Substandard medicines are real medical
products that fail to meet quality standards or specifications for a variety of
reasons, including poor manufacturing, shipping or storage conditions, or
because the drug is sold beyond its expiration date.
Researchers analyzed 96 previous studies of
falsified and substandard medicines and each of the studies tested more than 50
medications.
The team found that antimalarials and
antibiotics were the medicines most commonly sold in substandard or falsified
conditions. In low- and middle-income countries, 19 percent of antimalarials
and 12 percent of antibiotics are substandard or falsified.
The paper was published in the journal JAMA
Network Open and copied to the Ghana News Agency.
Dr Sachiko Ozawa, an Associate Professor at
the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, led the research along with collaborators.
“The prevalence of substandard and falsified
medicines is a substantial public health problem because these medicines can be
ineffective or harmful and can prolong illnesses, cause poisoning or lead to
dangerous drug interactions.”
“Our study shows that a concerted global
effort is needed to improve supply chain management for medicines and to
identify solutions to this understudied issue,” Dr Ozawa said.
The researchers searched five databases for
studies related to substandard and falsified medicines. They reviewed 256
studies and included 96 studies in their analysis.
“We need more global collaboration to
implement laws on drug quality, increase quality control capacity, and improve
surveillance and data sharing,” said James Herrington, a professor in the
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a co-author of the study.
“This can strengthen the global supply
chain against poor quality medicines, improve health outcomes by reducing
antimicrobial and anti-parasitic resistance and, ultimately, help governments,
businesses and patients save money.”
The team’s analysis found limited information
on the economic impact of poor quality medicines, with the estimates of market
size ranging widely from $10 billion to $200 billion.
Substandard and falsified medicines can burden
health systems by diverting resources to ineffective or harmful therapies and
cause additional treatment costs and reduced worker productivity due to
treatable illnesses, but these effects have not been measured.
GNA