Counterfeit drugs threaten lives worldwide

According to the World Health Organization, in developing countries, one in ten pills is fake or of poor quality.

» Selling fake cancer medicine for 5 million VND per box

» Announcing details of the licensing process of VN Pharma's fake drug case

The World Health Organization (WHO) points out that in low- and middle-income countries, one in ten medicines is substandard, putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people at risk.

Photo: FN.

According toReutersWHO analyzed 100 studies from 2007 to 2016 with more than 48,000 different drug samples. The results showed that 10.5% of these drugs were counterfeit or of poor quality. Thanks to the ease of trade and the development of the Internet, the problem of counterfeit drugs has spread more and more strongly, earning a profit of 30 billion USD each year.

Counterfeit drugs, which are made with incorrect dosages, active ingredients, or do not contain active ingredients, seriously affect human health. A study by the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) estimated that 169,000 children die from pneumonia caused by substandard antibiotics. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK) warned that the world will have 116,000 more deaths each year because of ineffective antimalarial drugs. In addition, counterfeit drugs also lead to antibiotic resistance.

“Poor quality medicines particularly affect vulnerable communities,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “This is unacceptable.”

In fact, since 2013, WHO has received more than 1,300 reports of counterfeit or substandard pharmaceuticals., mainly antimalarials and antibiotics. Now, the problem of counterfeit drugs has also spread to cancer drugs and birth control pills.

According to VNE