Fake drugs dashing hopes of controlling malaria in Africa

The emergence of fake and poor quality anti-malarial drugs could dash hopes of controlling malaria in Africa, warn experts writing in the Malaria Journal. Millions of lives could be put at risk unless urgent action is taken, they argue.

The international team led by Oxford University researchers report cases where medicines are on sale in Africa that have been deliberately counterfeited by criminals or are of poor quality resulting from factory errors. Not only are these drugs potentially harmful to the patient, but they risk promoting the emergence of drug resistance among the parasites that cause malaria.

The Wellcome Trust-funded researchers examined anti-malarials collected in 11 African countries between 2002 and 2010, which they believed to be either fake or substandard. Their analysis showed that some counterfeits contained a mixture of the wrong 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 drugs the patient was taking, such as antiretroviral therapies for HIV.