”Made in China” Ping.
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Posted on 09/03/2007 7:53:50 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
The discovery of an elaborate counterfeit ring in Kenya dealing with artemesinin-based anti-malarials has raised fears of the emergence of resistance by the malaria parasite against the only category of drugs that is fully effective against the killer fever.
Two weeks ago, the Chinese drug-maker Holley-Cotec Pharmaceuticals announced that it was withdrawing at least 20,000 doses of Duo-cotecxin, an artemesinin-based anti-malarial, after it discovered that the Kenyan market had been flooded with counterfeits.
Duo-cotecxin is a World Health Organisation (WHO) pre-qualified anti-malarial which contains artemesinin, an ingredient that has been used to treat fevers in China for the past 2,000 years. The counterfeits of the medicine in Kenya were being sold for less than $1, while the genuine medicine goes for about $5.
According to Eric Law, Holley-Cotec Pharmaceuticals’ vice-president, laboratory analysis of the counterfeits had revealed that they contained low levels of the active ingredients, meaning that patients who took them would not be cured of malaria.
Poorly formulated medicines, as well as wrong usage by patients such as failure to finish doses, sharing of one patient’s medicines among relatives and friends in a bid to cut costs, and inadequate prescriptions are the key factors that lead to the emergence of resistance by pathogens such as malaria’s Plasmodium falciparum.
Malaria experts say that these factors were instrumental in the development of resistance against such drugs as chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), which were previously highly effective against the disease but which now have very low cure rates.
Resistance to chloroquine by the malaria parasite was first detected in Kenya in 1984 while that against SP formulations started to emerge in the late 1990s.
According to Dr Willy Akwale, the head of Kenya’s malaria control programme, the recent discovery of the Duo-cotecxin counterfeits was the first the country had made of significant quantities of fake artemesinin-based anti-malarials.
Kenya adopted a drug, Coartem, in the same class to be the first-line treatment government hospitals in April 2004 following recommendations by the WHO and funding to the tune of $34 million from the Global Fund.
According to Mr Law, Holley-Cotec will endeavour to locate the counterfeits source before re-issuing Duo-cotecxin in Kenya. There was already evidence however, he added, that the fakes originated from an Asian country.
“We are now going to introduce a new technology to tamper-proof the doses that will be supplied to replace the withdrawn drugs,” Mr Law told the BBC news website.
In Asia, the problem of counterfeit anti-malarials has reached epidemic levels in such countries as Cambodia, Thailand and China, where backstreet laboratories churn out millions of doses for both local consumption and export, mainly to poorly regulated African countries.
Made in China = Doesn’t Work and Might Kill You, but it’s Cheap.
Dateline did a story about fake drugs from China. They focused on Viagra (because that was the direct evidence they had at the time of the story) but they interviewed US experts who said the fake drugs include cholesterol and blood pressure medicine.
shocking, no-one thought it could ever happen... /sarcasm
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