They are silently killing innocent lives. Mostly, the desperate poor and those badly hunting for a miracle to their chronic diseases are easy targets. So, the unsuspecting victims keep consuming the real life takers-fake drugs.
Mangochi based Asiatu (not her real name) once fell prey to some deceiving advertisement. She says the seemingly convincing voice in the advert swayed her into believing some drug would cure her of HIV and AIDS.
Asiatu got a wrong impression that she would in turn stop taking the life prolongin Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs.
“I saw the post on social media and was asked to pay through electronic money transaction and the fake drug was delivered.
“The agreement was that for efficacy, I needed to take more than three dosages. People like myself, would always jump at the opportunity of getting healed without even questioning if the drugs are fake or not, in the end we lose both money and our health,” says Asiatu
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Asiatu fears for her health after consuming the fake drugs. Each passing day, she fights with hope that the drugs will not end her life prematurely.
The proliferation of the poison so sweet in these fake drugs continues threatening lives of unsuspecting victims like Asiatu and many others.
This is also frustrating delivery of quality health services in the country especially among poor and illiterate Malawians who cannot do due diligence before buying these drugs.
Evidence is silently loud enough that some widely regarded as life-saving essential medications such as ARVs, antimalarials, painkillers and antibiotics are fake.
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Even those touted as masters in weight loss and sexual stimulants are counterfeit drugs but too decorated for the innocent eyes to notice the blatant blackmail.
For instance, in February 2024, Mangochi Police nabbed two women for selling a drug masquerading as an HIV cure. They made money through such deception. But they were caught in their own craftiness after National Aids Commission-NAC lodged a complaint on the same.
It was established that the women sold the fake drug to 16 people, raking in between K800, 000 and K900, 000.
State prosecutor, Shadreck Wikisi told the court that they were selling fake drugs and didn’t want to meet their clients for fear of being identified.
Said Wikisi: “The two convicts were found to be purchasing vials of gentamicin from pharmacies within Mangochi town.
“Subsequently, they would remove the original labels from these vials using methylated spirit and replace them with counterfeit labels, branding the medicines as “Gammora HIV cure” which they later sold to unsuspecting HIV patients at prices ranging from K90,000 to K120,000 per “dose” of three ampoules.”
On March 13 this year, the court fined the two K4.9 million or in default serve a two-year jail term.
In 2022, Limbe Police Station, arrested 57 year-old Daston Sandram in Kachere Township in Blantyre for possessing fake drugs and expired Panadol, Cefemol, Indocid and capsules packed with soil and maize flour, presented as drugs.
Some Malawians become so vulnerable to these fake drugs with the perennial shortage of drugs in the county’s pathetic public hospitals where they are sent back to buy from pharmacies.
Instead, they opt for black markets. They buy and consume not so scientifically recommended drugs with no proper prescription, leaving their lives in danger.
NAC spokesperson Karen Msiska admits that fake drugs pose a serious threat to public health and safety especially those on ARV treatment.
“In the course of being lured to take these fake medication, some people living with HIV might be stopping the effective genuine medication such as ARVs.
“That eventually slows viral suppression which was the basis of using treatment as prevention for the spread of HIV. So, in short, these fake medication derail HIV prevention,” decries Msiska.
Msiska does not seem to agree to the court punishment on the two women caught selling fake HIV drugs in Mangochi.
He argues: “The count bordering on spreading false, inaccurate and misleading information on HIV says those found guilty shall be fined K5 million and slapped with a five-year imprisonment. It’s both and not either of them, but the court opted for a fine that is even less than half the fine prescribed by law.
“However, we are good to go with the sentences because we now have precedences to refer to when telling people that the HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Management) Act is here and shall be unleashed on all those violating the legislation.”
The rising unchecked fake medicines is a ticking bomb to achieving United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals target 3.8, that calls for “access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all” by 2030.
This demands for adequate funding towards achieving quality medicines and meeting the targets.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe acknowledges that consuming fake drugs has serious consequences for individuals, communities, and overall the country’s public health.
“While medicines and medical supplies are key in treating and managing g patients, the same could be dangerous if they are being handled by untrained persons.
“It puts lives of unsuspecting public at risk. This includes conditions getting worse or developing resistance. In the worst scenarios, it could be fatal,” says Chikumbe.
An Associate Professor of Pharmacy at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, (KUHES), Felix Khuluza, says falsified and substandard medicines in Malawi have been identified throughout the years.
“As to the recent case of the Mangochi ladies who were selling the purportedly HIV cure, it was a falsification of normal medicine. It is difficult to completely quantify the falsification on its own.
“However, we are able to quantify the prevalence of substandard medicines in Malawi. In terms of substandard and falsification of medicines, the prevalence of the problem is estimated to be between 10 and 15%,” says Khuluza.
He adds the falsification component would be a very small contribution to this estimate. Khuluza says research on substandard and falsified medicines have been done and continues to be done in this field at KUHES’ Pharmacy department.
“I am the lead in this area together with my team in the pharmacy department. The falsification and substandard medicines pose a serious health impact to the citizenry. The example of the falsification of gentamicin as a cure for HIV/AIDS is a serious issue as the HIV/AIDS-infected individuals are desperately looking for a cure, they easily fall prey to these adverts.
“These individuals might end up stopping taking the anti-retroviral drugs (life-prolonging medicines) in favour of the drug that would not cure anything. The stoppage of taking medication would result in a rebound of HIV/AIDS thus putting their lives at risk, even leading to early deaths,” explains Khuluza.
Research shows that consumption of substandard and falsified medicines also lead to treatment hiccups like failing to control hypertension, diabetes and other chronic conditions.
Khuluza further observes that health workers, especially clinicians and doctors end up changing prescribed medications with a thought that they are not working.
“This change in medication results in selecting costly medicines that not only affect financial status of the patients (and citizenry), but also the meagre resources in the public sector.
“For some medications, like antibiotics, substandard and falsified medicines contributes to microbial resistance. This is serious issue as there are few antibiotics being discovered these days,” he says.
The revised Pharmacy and Medicine Regulatory Authority Act (PMRA) has necessary mandate including tough penalties to those fuelling the vice.
For instance, Section 98.—(1) of PMRA Act states that “a person shall not, in the course of any business carried on by him, manufacture, import, assemble, dispense, sale any medicinal product or medical device which is falsified or substandard. (2) A person who contravenes this section shall, upon conviction, be liable to a fine of K10,000,000 and to imprisonment for ten years.”
In September 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) flagged four substandard cough syrup brands from Maiden Pharma, India, as they were reportedly linked to the deaths of 66 children in Gambia in western Africa.
The product was later found to possess excessive levels of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants
The risk of fake drugs should not be taken lightly, lives have been lost before. In 2011, 200 people died in Pakistan after taking contaminated heart medication.
More than a thousand people were hospitalised in the Democratic Republic of Congo after taking a fake drug in 2014 and 2015. It turned out to contain an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia.
In November 2008, 34 Nigerian children, aged between four months to three years, died and more than 50 were hospitalised with severe kidney damage after their mothers, wishing to alleviate their children’s teething pains, unknowingly gave them a counterfeit drug.
National Aids Commission therefore calls on the people to jealously ssafeguard their lives, saying it is not something they should experiment on.
“We are always imploring members of the public to avoid buying medicines from informal markets for the simple reason that such medicines are very likely to be fake,” says Karen Msiska who speaks for the Commission.
Khuluza of KUHES says health authorities must intensify on public sensitization on the dangers of fake drugs and how they can authenticate the rising availability of drugs on the market.
Until that time, Asiatu and other unsuspecting poor citizens remain trapped and susceptible to the growing availability of fake drugs that are a genuine menace to their precious lives.
