Increased fake drugs on African continent irks Lungu

PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu has regretted the in-creased use of substandard, less effective and counterfeit medical products on the African Continent. The President said that such drugs contributed to the rising problem of antimicrobial re-sistance, leading to catastrophic consequences on the health of the people. The Head of State said this in a speech read on his behalf by Health minister, Chitalu Chi-lufya at the high level meeting on “The fight for quality medicines in Africa – stopping falsified, substandard medicines,” on the sides lines of the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday. The President stated that the meeting had come at the right time when the World had united to put universal health coverage at the top of its agenda. He said however that universal health coverage would only be attained if access to afforda-ble, quality, safe and effective medical prod-ucts was realized. President Lungu observed that substandard and falsified medical products where most likely to be found where access to affordable, quali-ty, safe and effective medical products was constrained. “The risk posed by substandard and falsified medical products is very real in the African region, which is currently leading in report-ing to the World Health Organisations rapid alert system,” he said. The President stated that the onus was there-fore on them to provide the requisite leader-ship to win the fight. He stated that Zambia had welcomed the estab-lishment of the African Medicines Agency (AMA), and encouraged that combined efforts with the world health organization would go a long way in helping to address the problem of fake drugs. And UN AIDS Executive Director, Michelle Side-be said there was need to criminalise the man-ufacturing of substandard and falsified medi-cines because the vice had contributed to drug resistance in TB and Malaria.

The risk posed by substandard and falsified medical products is very real in the African region, which is currently leading in reporting to the World Health Organisations rapid alert system. — President Lungu.