World Health Organization calls for concrete international action on
counterfeit medicines
Immediate concrete action against the growing global epidemic of counterfeit medicines has been called for by the World Health Organization.
At an international conference last week, the WHO pushed for stronger
global co-operation, political commitment and creative solutions to solve
the problem. Its aim is to create a global task force to focus on legislation
and
law enforcement, trade, risk communication and the development of innovative
technological solutions to detect counterfeits and the transfer of these
solutions to developing countries.
Harvey Bale, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical
Manufacturers and Associations and president of the Pharmaceutical Security
Institute (PSI), told the meeting that counterfeits, which were already
a major hazard in developing countries, were a growing problem in developed
countries.
The PSI — an international pharmaceutical industry anti-counterfeiting
organisation — recorded 781 instances of counterfeiting in 2005,
compared with 557 in 2004. There had been 39 known cases in the UK, which
ranked seventh in the world for detection of counterfeits.
Calling on governments worldwide to treat medicines counterfeiting as
a serious crime with uniformly tough enforcement and penalties, as well
as tighter control of the pharmaceutical supply chain, Dr Bale said: “It’s
a grave error to see counterfeit medicines as a similar problem to other
fake products.”
Howard Zucker, the WHO’s assistant director general for health
technology and pharmaceuticals, agreed. “People don’t die
from carrying a fake handbag or wearing a fake T-shirt,” he said. “They
can die from taking a counterfeit medicine.”
After the conference, David Pruce, director of practice and quality improvement
at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said: “We will be contacting
the WHO and offering our support for their call for action.”
He added: “Although we have only had a small number of cases of
counterfeit medicines reaching the legitimate medicine supply chain in
Great Britain, it is important that we do not become complacent. A far
greater worry is the availability of prescription-only medicines over
the internet. This is by far the riskiest way of obtaining medicines
unless people can be certain that they are obtaining the medicine from
a pharmacy registered in this country. The Society is currently leading
a working group to consider how purchasing medicines from the internet
could be made safer.” |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader