Malawi not worst on fake medicines—health expert
A renowned scholar and expert in pharmaceuticals says the prevalence of fake medicines is a global problem, contrary to a study indicating that “Malawi was found to have the highest proportion of substandard and falsified medicines”.
In a leaked e-mail that we have seen, professor of pharmaceutical biology at University of Tübingen in Germany, Lutz Heide, has written pushers of the story, The Guardian UK, saying in the cited material, the information was based only on “one small and outdated study with questionable methodology”.
While providing reference journals, he argued, in the e-mail, that those newer studies which include some of his own demonstrated that medicine quality in Malawi was far better than in other African countries.
Reads the e-mail in part: “Citation of only incorrect, outdated information may unsettle patients in Malawi and prevent them from seeking life-saving medical treatment. I would appreciate it if you could publish this additional, correct information.”
In a written response yesterday, Heide told The Nation substandard and falsified medicines affect all countries in the world, including high-income countries.
He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that, on average, 10.5 percent of all medicines in low-and middle-income countries are substandard or falsified.
“ T h e m e d i c i n e s a r e sometimes with minor quality deficiencies, sometimes with major deficiencies. Also Malawi is affected by this problem, but less than many other countries, e.g. in Western and Central Africa,” he said.
From January 2014 to December 2015, Professor Heide worked in the Pharmacy Department at Kamuzu College of Health Sciences under a contract with the German Development Cooperation.
He shared with The Nation a study he conducted together with Felix Khuluza and Stephen Kigera titled Low Prevalence of Substandard and Falsified Antimalarial and Antibiotic Medicines in Public and Faith- Based Health Facilities of Southern Malawi published in 2017 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
The study found that although the observed presence of substandard and falsified medicines in Malawi required action, their low prevalence in public and faith-based health facilities was still encouraging.
It used random sampling in the selection of health facilities and collected six antimalarial and six antibiotic medicines from 31 health facilities and drug outlets in southern Malawi.
“Three samples were classified as substandard with extreme deviations from the pharmacopeial standards, and three further samples as substandard with non-extreme deviations,” read the study findings in part.
Figures by the University of Tübingen indicate that “the expenditure for such poor-quality medicines amounts to $30 billion per year, and the annual number of deaths resulting from substandard and falsified medicines is estimated to be 74 000 to 169 000 in childhood pneumonia, and 31 000 to 116 000 in malaria.”
