Showing posts with label Counterfeit medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Counterfeit medicine. Show all posts

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Tani 9 za Madawa Bandia Yakamatwa Afrika Mashariki


Kila siku tunasikia habari ya madawa bandia Bongo. Tunasikia watu wameugua zaidi na hata kufa shauri ya kununua au kupewa madawa bandia. Mwisho wake utakuwa lini? Serikali ifanye nini kukomesha hayo madawa bandia yasiingizwe nchini?

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Kutoka CNN.Com

9 tons of fake medicine seized in East Africa

August 26, 2010 10:54 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Authorities have seized 9,072 kilograms (20,000 pounds) of counterfeit medicine and arrested 80 people suspected of illegal trafficking in six East African nations, Interpol said Thursday.

More than 300 premises were checked or raided in the two-month operation across Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zanzibar, according to a news release from the international police agency.

The confiscated loot included anti-malaria drugs, vaccines and antibiotics. There was also a significant quantity of government medicines diverted to illegal resale markets.

It was the third such seizure operation in as many years in East Africa, intended to curb the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit medical products.

Representatives of the six nations are scheduled to meet in Zanzibar next week to discuss the seizure and the extent of the counterfeiting problem, Interpol said.

The World Health Organization defines counterfeit drugs as "medicine, which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source."

Counterfeiting can apply to both brand-name and generic products, and forged products may include those with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient active ingredients, or with fake packaging, WHO says.

The United Nations agency created a global task force in 2006 to deal with the problem, which has been growing as international markets expand and become globalized and internet commerce has taken off.

The fake products can prove detrimental to public health efforts in disease-ridden countries and in worst-case scenarios can cause death, according to the WHO task force.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Watoto wafa Nigeria baada ya Kupewa Dawa enye Sumu!

Hao watu wanaofikiria pesa kabla ya usalama wa watoto wana dhambi ile mbaya. Kuna habari kutoka Nigeria kuwa wataoto karibu 30 wamekufa baada ya kupewa Gripe water enye sumu. Sumu enyewe ni 'anti freeze' ambayo tunaweka kwenye magari yetu hapa Marekani wakati wa msimu wa baridi!

Nina wasiwasi na Tanzania itakumbwa na mkasa kama huo tusipokuwa makini, kwani wanasema kuwa ni counterfeit/fake dawa ambayo tayari imekuwa tatizo.

Mungu alaze roho za watoto waliokufa mahala pema mbinguni. AMEN
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LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nneka and Chimezie Ononaku unwittingly poisoned their own four-month-old son Chinonso. Giving him what they thought was a baby teething medicine, they were in fact dosing him with anti-freeze.

The bottle had been contaminated with a toxic chemical called diethylene glycol.

More than 30 Nigerian children are thought to have died recently after taking the medicine. Nneka is angry.

"It's not easy carrying a pregnancy for nine months, [and] after that getting a drug from a pharmacy to kill your own child," she says.

When Nigeria's Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) tested the medicine, "My Pikin," the results were terrifying.

It found the medicine contained almost 90ml of diethylene glycol per 100ml.

"It's a bottle of poison," the NAFDAC laboratory said.

The "My Pikin" factory's managing director and eight others have been charged with negligence. The company could not be reached for comment.

Undercover NAFDAC officers have taken to the streets in order to combat unregistered and often harmful drugs. Hawkers are charged with selling counterfeit drugs and forced to pay a fine.

NAFDAC claims most of the counterfeit drugs come from India and China.

And it's big business -- America's Centre for Medicines in the Public Interest predicts counterfeit drug sales will reach $75 billion in 2010.

NAFDAC's director-general Dora Akunyili warns counterfeiting is not just a Nigerian problem.

"These criminals are cooperating, so we too need to cooperate if we can face them. Not only in Nigeria but internationally, because drug counterfeiting involves a trans-national criminal network and can only be dismantled through international co-operation."