Lancet has published today an editorial highlighting the risk and cost of poor quality drugs.
Few numbers;
1. 120 people died and hundreds more suffered adverse reactions after taking a contaminated heart medicine in Pakistan.
2. Contaminated injectible steroid in US has caused outbreak of fungal meningitis resulting in 704 people getting sick and 46 killed.
3. The contamination of heparin by Chinese counterfeiters in 2007 and 2008, killed 149 patients in the USA.
4. In 2009, the European Union seized 34 million fake tablets in just 2 months, including antibiotics, cancer treatments, and sildenafil citrate (Viagra).
The numbers are much higher but we are not made aware of them because of various reasons.
There is a need for more research and robust data gathering to estimate the burden of poor quality drugs. This has been hampered on many accounts.
In fact Royal Pharmaceutical Society's 1989 statement reads like this, "no great publicity (about fake drugs) should be sought because it could damage public confidence in medicines" (Cockburn et al : 2005; SCRIP, 1989).
With innovative technologies (like RFID), advanced data assimilators and analytics (Watson), advanced pharmacovigilance, collective involvement, responsibility, and responses of all interested parties: health professionals, drug regulatory authorities, judicial entities, and drug companies at both national and international levels.-Can and will make a difference.
References:
1.Strenghtening Global Action Against Poor Quality Drugs
2. Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs
3. Counterfeit drugs: a growing global threat
Few numbers;
1. 120 people died and hundreds more suffered adverse reactions after taking a contaminated heart medicine in Pakistan.
2. Contaminated injectible steroid in US has caused outbreak of fungal meningitis resulting in 704 people getting sick and 46 killed.
3. The contamination of heparin by Chinese counterfeiters in 2007 and 2008, killed 149 patients in the USA.
4. In 2009, the European Union seized 34 million fake tablets in just 2 months, including antibiotics, cancer treatments, and sildenafil citrate (Viagra).
The numbers are much higher but we are not made aware of them because of various reasons.
There is a need for more research and robust data gathering to estimate the burden of poor quality drugs. This has been hampered on many accounts.
In fact Royal Pharmaceutical Society's 1989 statement reads like this, "no great publicity (about fake drugs) should be sought because it could damage public confidence in medicines" (Cockburn et al : 2005; SCRIP, 1989).
With innovative technologies (like RFID), advanced data assimilators and analytics (Watson), advanced pharmacovigilance, collective involvement, responsibility, and responses of all interested parties: health professionals, drug regulatory authorities, judicial entities, and drug companies at both national and international levels.-Can and will make a difference.
References:
1.Strenghtening Global Action Against Poor Quality Drugs
2. Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs
3. Counterfeit drugs: a growing global threat
No comments:
Post a Comment