Three ways to spot fake medicines

Consuming counterfeit medicines can be dangerous or harmful. In Africa, fake medicines are not up to quality standard and has caused serious health issues

At the end of a long day, you realise you’re starting to get a headache. So you buy painkillers from the street vendor, and take two. But how do you know what those pills really are? The vendor isn’t a pharmacy. There’s no package insert listing ingredients or dosage instructions. What if you’ve just tried to treat your headache with counterfeit medicine?

The term “counterfeit medicine” refers to medicines that are deliberately and fraudulently falsified or mislabelled. Also called sub-standard or falsified medicines, they would have failed to pass the quality measurements and standards which are approved by medicine regulatory authorities. They aren’t to be confused with generic medicines – those are cheaper, but still scientifically proven to be safe and efficacious versions of patented medicines.

The most common fakes tend to be the most popular medicines: painkillers, antibiotics to treat infection, anti-malarials, anti-retrovirals, sexual stimulants, or weight loss medications.

Counterfeit medicines are a huge problem in many African countries. Research has shown that many developing countries have a high prevalence of substandard medicines. For instance, up to 88.4% of antimalarials in some African markets have been reported as being fake. Using ineffective medicines causes between 64,000 and 158,000 deaths from malaria every year in sub-Saharan Africa.

Giving people medicine that won’t work or isn’t made properly is obviously dangerous. Over 250,000 children worldwide die from these medicines each year. In the past year alone more than 300 children died after ingesting counterfeit cough or pain syrups.

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Work is underway to strengthen governments’ surveillance of counterfeit medicine. For instance, in many African countries pharmacists are being trained to create awareness of such medicines and their possible infiltration into the medicine supply chain. This will make them better prepared to detect fake medicines and share information with their patients.