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Fake and poor quality malaria drugs risk crisis in Africa, warn scientists

Dhruv V Singh

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May 18, 2011
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Hopes of controlling malaria in Africa could be wrecked by criminals who are circulating counterfeit and substandard drugs, threatening millions of lives, scientists are warning.

They are calling for public health authorities to take urgent action to preserve the efficacy of the anti-malarials now being used in the worst-hit areas of the continent.

There has been growing hope of an end to the age-old scourge of malaria, with UN and donor countries having contributed to a massive effort to get modern technological tools to endemic areas, including insecticide-impregnated bed nets and new drugs that had their origins in China, derived from artemisinin plants. Artemisinins have replaced old medicines such as chloroquine and mefloquine in places where the malaria parasite has developed resistance. It is the common fate of anti-malarials, which is why the World Health Organisation has urged that the artemisinins should only be used in combination with other drugs, which delays resistance developing.

But large parts of Africa are threatened by the distribution of fake and poor quality anti-malarials made illicitly in China.

Malaria kills nearly a million people each year, mainly young children and pregnant women. It is caused by parasites injected into the bloodstream by mosquitoes.

Some of the fake drugs contain artemisinin, but not enough to kill all the parasites in a child's body. Not only will the child struggle to recover, but the parasites that survive may become resistant to the drug and spread a form of the disease that ACTs (artemisinin combination therapy) will no longer cure.

In a study in the Malaria Journal, Dr Paul Newton from the Wellcome Trust-Mahosot Hospital-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration in Laos and a team of colleagues report on the make-up of some of the fake anti-malarials on sale in Africa, as well as some that are equally useless and dangerous because they are of poor quality. They looked at samples of suspect drugs from 11 countries collected between 2002 and 2010.

Analysis showed some counterfeits contained a mixture of wrong active pharmaceutical ingredients, some of which may initially alleviate malaria symptoms but would not cure malaria. Worse still, these unexpected ingredients could cause potentially serious side effects, particularly if they were to interact with other medication that the patient was taking, such as anti-retroviral therapies for HIV.

The fake drugs appear to have been made in eastern Asia. The researchers identified pollen from that region in some of the tablets. In 2001, police in Guangzhou, China, arrested Nigerian and Chinese men for production of counterfeits of the anti-malarial halofantrine. There was no evidence from the pollen analysis to suggest any of the drugs would have been manufactured in Africa, but production facilities for packaging materials for counterfeit anti-malarials have been seized in Nigeria.

It is impossible to say how widely counterfeit and substandard drugs are being distributed, but, Newton said something needed to be done. "The enormous investment in the development, evaluation and deployment of anti-malarials is wasted if the medicines that patients actually take are, due to criminality or carelessness, of poor quality and do not cure," he said.

"Malaria can be readily treated with the right drugs of good quality, but poor quality medicines, as well as increasing mortality and morbidity, risk exacerbating the economic and social impact of malaria on societies that are already poor."

Newton and and his team have called urgent action from public health authorities to prevent the circulation of the fake and ineffective drugs and also to stop artemisinin being used on its own, which makes it far more likely that resistance will develop than if it is in combination.

It will be very hard for the affected African countries to tackle the problem, however.

"It is very difficult to regulate the drug supply in poor countries," he said. "WHO has said that 30% of drug regulatory authorities don't function. They don't list which they are but logically they are likely to be in economically poor, malarious countries. It is very difficult for them to control the import or introduction of artemisinin therapies."

Fake and poor quality malaria drugs risk crisis in Africa, warn scientists | Society | The Guardian
 
chinese are committing a very big crime to humanity by supplying fake medicines. :tdown: :sick: :sick:

And they do cheap tricks in that too, as they know that Indian drugs are reputed they labeled them as Made in India. :tdown: :tdown:
 
The report, written by Dr Paul Newton, has shown that a number of the fake drugs either had the wrong ingredients or the wrong proportions. Most malaria drugs contain a substance called artemisinin (derived from a plant that originates in China, commonly known as sweet wormwood.) The drugs had traces of artemisinin in them: enough to pass a routine anti-counterfeit test but not enough of the active ingredient to be medically effective.

The BBC reports that most of the fake tablets originated in China (which has come from an analysis of the drugs which contain a pollen unique to certain parts of Asia). In addtion, some production facilities for packaging materials for counterfeit antimalarials have recenlty been seized in Nigeria.

Read more: Warning over fake malaria drugs in Africa
 
And they tried to Pass it on as Indian Made...Kudos to the Chinese and Nigerian authorities who brought this to light. Its Africa, so anyone can do anything. Shame on these people !!
 
no,we save millions from that disease all across the globe

Chinese Scientist Wins Lasker Award for Anti-Malaria Drug

Sep 26 2011

An 81-year-old Chinese scientist won America’s outstanding award in medicine on Friday for her discovery of an anti-malaria drug.

Professor Tu Youyou is the first scientist from mainland China to win the Lasker Award—dubbed as “America’s Nobels.”

Tu Youyou
For the discovery of artemisinin, a drug therapy for malaria that has saved millions of lives across the globe, especially in the developing world.

The 2011 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award honors a scientist who discovered artemisinin and its utility for treating malaria. Tu Youyou (China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing) developed a therapy that has saved millions of lives across the globe, especially in the developing world. An artemisinin-based drug combination is now the standard regimen for malaria, and the World Health Organization (WHO) lists artemisinin and related agents in its catalog of "Essential Medicines." Each year, several hundred million people contract malaria. Without treatment, many more of them would die than do now. Tu led a team that transformed an ancient Chinese healing method into the most powerful antimalarial medicine currently available.

Malaria has devastated humans for millennia, and it continues to ravage civilizations across the planet. In 2008, the mosquito-borne parasites that cause the illness, Plasmodia, infected 247 million people and caused almost one million deaths. The ailment strikes children particularly hard, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa. It affects more than 100 countries—including those in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, parts of Europe—and travelers from everywhere. Symptoms include fever, headache, and vomiting; malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs. Early diagnosis and treatment reduces disease incidence, prevents deaths, and cuts transmission.

In the late 1950s, the WHO embarked on an ambitious project to eradicate malaria. After limited success, the disease rebounded in many places, due in part to the emergence of parasites that resisted drugs such as chloroquine that had previously held the malady at bay. At the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government launched a secret military project that aimed to devise a remedy for the deadly scourge. China was particularly motivated to prevail over malaria not only because it was a significant problem at home, but also because the Vietnamese government had asked for help. It was at war and the affliction was devastating its civilian and military populations.

The covert operation, named Project 523 for the day it was announced—May 23, 1967—set out to battle chloroquine-resistant malaria. The clandestine nature of the enterprise and the political climate created a situation in which few scientific papers concerning the project were published for many years, the earliest ones were not accessible to the international community, and many details about the endeavor are still shrouded in mystery. In early 1969, Tu was appointed head of the Project 523 research group at her institute, where practitioners of traditional medicine worked side by side with modern chemists, pharmacologists, and other scientists. In keeping with Mao Zedong's urgings to "explore and further improve" the "great treasure house" of traditional Chinese medicine, Tu combed ancient texts and folk remedies for possible leads. She collected 2000 candidate recipes, which she then winnowed. By 1971, her team had made 380 extracts from 200 herbs. The researchers then assessed whether these substances could clear Plasmodia from the bloodstream of mice infected with the parasite.
 
^^Yes a chinese scientist discovered the new formula. But for the poor peopl in Africa and elsewhere you guys give fake drugs. Shameful :tdown:
 
china should not do this to the African people, its very sick. :tdown:

---------- Post added at 04:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:01 PM ----------

^^Yes a chinese scientist discovered the new formula. But for the poor peopl in Africa and elsewhere you guys give fake drugs. Shameful :tdown:

That discovery is a way of earning more money by saying that look we have got new pill.

And selling fake medicines is another way of making money out of someone's pain and disease.
 

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