Counterfeit drugs in less developed countries; IPN discussion

Counterfeit medicines in developing countries and how to deal with them was the topic of an occasional discussion by the London, UK-based think-tank, the International Policy Network. The speaker was Paul Newton from the University of Oxford, a specialist in tropical infectious diseases who is investigating the causes of fever, their optimum treatment and the quality of anti-infective drugs that are available. Dr Newton divides his time between Oxford's Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Disease at the Churchill Hospital and the Vientiane, Laos-headquartered Microbiology Laboratory at the Mahosot Hospital, which is sponsored by the Welcome Trust, a UK-based charity.

Dr Newton concentrated on a specific instance of counterfeiting: artesunate, an antimalarial drug manufactured in the Guangxi region of China by Guilin Pharmaceutical. In February 2005, a young man died in an east Burmese hospital after being given fake artesunate, which contained a mixture of paracetamol and one tenth of the stated active ingredient. The fake product was identified as a "type 9" counterfeit, out of 12 known mass-produced copies, all imitating the same factory's product.

"We make no apology for the use of the term 'manslaughter' to describe this criminal lethal trade," the authors of a report into the spread of fake drugs wrote, adding: "indeed, some might call it murder. Somewhere, people are directing a highly-technical and sophisticated criminal trade."