Counterfeit drugs are major cause of death, disabilities –Expert warns

Drugs displayed in an open market in Nigeria

Continuous use of counterfeit drugs has been identified as a major cause of death and disabilities among Nigerians and Africans in general, amidst reports that counterfeit medicines constitute about 6% of the world pharmaceutical market.

At an interactive forum with journalists in Lagos recently, the Director of Regulatory Affair, Pfizer Nigeria, Mrs . Bunmi Femi-Oyekan cited recent WHO statistics showing that the circulation of counterfeit medicines is worse in Africa where estimates revealed that the influx of counterfeits products range between 23% and 40% in Ghana, 30 % in Kenya and about 16% in Nigeria.

She described a counterfeit medicine as a drug which has the packaging that appears the same as the authentic product and stressed that they are not made by the respective proprietary (Original manufacturer) but are presented to the consumer as if they were. These, she said, include products with no active ingredients which usually results in treatment failure, products not registered by local regulatory authority, products with the wrong ingredients (possibly toxic and therefore may be harmful to patients), products with altered expiry dates as well as re-use of discarded packaging of genuine products.