The fake or substandard medicine industry, estimated to be worth billions, is thriving in developing countries like India. Given the fact that drugs made in India are sold worldwide, the phenomenon represents a serious public health hazard that extends beyond national boundaries.
Worldwide problem
It is not only the under-developed or developing countries that are plagued by the menace of counterfeit drugs. In the developed world, counterfeiting involves "expensive hormones
, steroids and anti-cancer medicines and pharmaceuticals related to lifestyle," claims a World Health Organization (WHO) report.
The case is somewhat different in the developing countries where such counterfeit medicines are usually available to treat life-threatening conditions such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
"They put people at risk of harm from medical products that may contain too much, too little, or the wrong active ingredient and/or contain toxic ingredients," Margaret Hamburg, head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said of the repercussions that these spurious drugs can have.
Needless to say, a falsified Viagra poses lesser threat than a falsified malaria medicine or a falsified AIDS medicine. The degree and extent may vary, but all of them are harmful.
"For a patient, any medicine with compromised safety, efficacy or quality is dangerous," Hamburg said.
The problem of counterfeit drugs, according to the Pharmaceutical Security Institute, which registered over 2,000 incidents of counterfeit medicines last year, a 9 percent jump over previous year, is definitely increasing.
It is for this reason health ministers at the 63rd World Health Assembly at Geneva are discussing the ways and means to battle counterfeit medicines.
Divergent interests
The WHO is faced with conflicts of interest amongst various countries, and therefore, the debate is not restricted to health impacts of counterfeit medicines.
India, which ranks among major manufacturers of generic drugs, blames the global pharmaceutical industry of using the subject of counterfeit drugs to protect their patents against generic competitors. It claims that WHO is helping such countries.
The Director of WHO's Essential Medicines Program, Hendrick Hogerzeil clarified the agency’s stance, "Our stated goal is very clear. We do not want any counterfeit discussion to block the trade in, what we call, legitimate generic medicines and WHO is not going in IPR (Intellectual Property Right) enforcements.
“We go for the public health and leave the other thing to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) and WTO (World Trade Organization) and the countries themselves," added Hogerzeil.
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