Should people be more wary of substances?
Numerous drugs are now counterfeit in today’s society across the world. With so many varieties of brands and substances, nearly 70% of drugs are counterfeit in some countries.
While most of the world’s developed countries carry out effective regulatory systems and market controls which result in an extremely low proportion of counterfeit drugs, usually below 1%, many patients and the general public can be affected by counterfeit drugs every year.
The counterfeit drug industry is undoubtedly worth more than a billion dollars, with the under developed parts of Asia and Africa accounting for 30% of medicinal sales being fake, it is a very big challenge to control the flood of counterfeit drugs and substances being distributed continentally and globally.
According to Peter Pitts, President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and former FDA associate commissioner, an estimate of $75 billion was generated in activities related to counterfeit drugs in 2010 globally, based on information obtained from government organisations.
As much as 100,000 deaths a year in Africa are linked to the counterfeit drug trade, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In 2015, nearly £16 million worth of counterfeit and unlicensed medicines were seized by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Healthcare Agency (MHRA).
Substances such as slimming pills, diabetes medication and cancer medicines were taken in a series of raids.
Nearly 1400 websites were closed and seven suspects under inspection as part of the operation.
The MHRA say that counterfeit medicines were the greatest source of profit “across the whole criminal spectrum” but insisted that the UK was “ahead of the game”.