UN CONDEMNS FAKE MEDICINE IN THIRD WORLD

About 11 per cent of medicines in developing countries are counterfeit and likely responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of children from diseases like malaria and pneumonia every year, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

It’s the first attempt by the UN health agency to assess the problem. Experts reviewed 100 studies involving more than 48,000 medicines. Drugs for treating malaria and bacterial infections accounted for nearly 65 per cent of fake medicines.

WHO’s director- general said the problem mostly affects poor countries. Between 72,000 and 169,000 children may be dying from pneumonia every year after receiving bad drugs. Counterfeit medications might be responsible for an additional 116,000 deaths from malaria mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to scientists at the University of Edinburgh and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine commissioned by the WHO.

WHO said the cases of fake medicines it found are only “a small fraction” and that problems may be going unreported. The agency estimated countries are spending about $ 30 billion on counterfeit drugs.