Medicine Counterfeiting Major Obstacle to World Health
”Drug counterfeiting is a major obstacle,” to one-third of the world’s population that would seek essential medicines, said Dr. Paul Orhii at a workshop for health correspondents.
Dr. Paul Orhii, Director-General of the Nigerian National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said that 270 million people in Africa lack access to real medicine.
Conducting a workshop for Nigerian health reporters in order to raise public awareness of the prevalence of counterfeit medication worldwide, he said that access to real medicine is a global problem, with more than one-third of the world’s population lacking accessing to necessary drugs according to The World Health Organization.
Said Orhii, “One-third of the world’s population lacks access to essential drugs with this occurring mostly in developing countries. The World Health Organization, WHO, estimates that roughly 270 million people in Africa lack regular access to even the most essential medicines,” reported The Nigerian newspaper, The Vanguard.
“Drug counterfeiting is a major obstacle that prevents access to safe, quality and efficacious medicines and has also become a global problem,” he continued.
Orhii’s campaign in Nigeria to fight counterfeit medicine has combined a long-running media campaign to raise public awareness, extensive training of officials to identify and capture counterfeit medicine distributors, and support with international drug and food regulatory agencies to develop capacity.