Counterfeit Chinese made malaria medicines putting lives at risk
Tracing the supply chain is no easy matter. Investigators have literally “tracked” counterfeit malaria drugs across the whole of south-east Asia. As a result, some 391 samples of artesunate have been collected and undergone laboratory analysis.The results show that the “majority of counterfeit medicines did not contain artesunate”, states Dr Paul Newton of Oxford in the United Kingdom. In other words, these products did not contain any active principle… and therefore had no therapeutic effect! On the plus side of this scandalous practice, the danger of seeing resistant strains develop is nil as the active principle is missing from the product.
21 April 2008