During the Partnership for Safe Medicines’ Interchange Conference in 2010, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg read an alarming statistic that “in certain parts of the world, somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of drugs to treat serious diseases are actually counterfeit.” Hamburg then emphasizes that due to limited surveillance she feels uncertain whether these shocking numbers even truly represent “the magnitude and scope of the problem,” which she believes “is growing every day.”
While Hamburg’s team claims to be making strides in protecting US citizens from imported tampered with medicines, her organizations cannot respectfully guard Americans who travel out of the FDA’s range of influence. This is certainly true for people who do not receive the proper travel immunization medications before venturing into developing countries that lack adequate regulation of transported drugs.
People especially traveling to sub-Saharan Africa put themselves at a high risk of contracting malaria, an infectious disease transmitted by mosquitos, with little assurance of receiving reliable drug therapy. According to a survey conducted by the World Health Organization in 2003 between 20 and 90 percent of antimalarial drugs that were tested in seven different African countries failed to meet quality standards. This proves troubling as every country surveyed (Kenya, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Gabon, Zimbabwe and Sudan) are considered areas endemic for malaria disease by the Center for Disease Control.
Reasons for this vary, but the WHO charges that changing prescription techniques, poor medical facilities and a growing criminal market all attribute to these areas distributing faulty antimalarial drugs. As the malaria virus has mutated and become more resistant to medications over the years more physicians are combining different medicines for patients, which leaves more room for counterfeit drugs to get into the mix. Poverty in these areas also leads to underfunded laboratories, poorly trained physicians, poor drug handling and bad manufacturing practices. And as popularized in the recent “60 Minutes” nine-month investigation, there has been a recent acceleration all over the world in drug counterfeiting and cargo theft.
Fake antimalarial drugs in other countries are typically packaged to look like brand name drugs. They are ineffective usually because they contain less than the required amount of active ingredient, lack the active ingredient all together, or are cut with harmful substances. Medical facilities in poorer countries also tend to carry low quality antimalaria medication that use cheaper and not as affective ingredient alternatives. Another counterfeit technique is selling expired drugs that are repackaged with new expiration dates.
Untreated or poorly treated malaria can kill you, as it does over 800,000 people a year, according to the WHO. Nobody traveling to endemic areas should risk their health and life by depending on hospitals local to the area when they have access to more trustworthy clinics in the US.
If you are traveling soon and live in the tri-state area, visit this travel clinic in NYC to get the proper travel immunization medicines to assure you have a safe journey. You’ll be helped by a board certified doctor will years of experience in travel health. Wherever you’re going, travel medicine office nyc can provide you with all the information, health advice and needed vaccinations/medicines for you before embarking on your journey.
Visit get travel immunization in NYC office or call 212-696-5900 to learn more about protecting your health abroad.
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