More than 120,000 people a year die in Africa as a result of
fake anti-malarial drugs alone, says the World Health Organization, either
because the drugs were substandard or simply contained no active ingredients at
all.
Even medicines that are substandard - containing an
insufficient dosage of active ingredients, say - can be deadly, leading to drug
resistance, a particular issue for infectious diseases like malaria and By some
estimates, about a third of all anti-malarial drugs in sub-Saharan Africa are
fake. And these fakes can find their way into pharmacies, clinics and street
vendor stalls, or be sold online via thousands of unregulated websites.
But a handful of start-ups have been trying to tackle the
issue using technology.
But if such tech solutions are working, why are so many
people still dying and suffering as a result of fake medicines?
"Most of the fake drugs are made in Asia and then
imported into Africa," says Mr Simons. "The scale of the trade is
huge and what we're doing is tiny compared to the size of the problem.
"And the very big multinational pharmaceutical
companies have been very conservative - they've taken a long time to get on
board," he says. "Tech start-ups can't solve the problem by
themselves."
Corruption is also to blame, says Mr Simons, with government
ministers often purloining subsidised medicines and selling them privately at
inflated prices, and inspectors accepting bribes to turn a blind eye to fake
shipments.
"There's a black hole of accountability; we need far
more transparency throughout the whole system," he says.
Culled from BBC News. Read more:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37470667
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