Researchers
have recently found that a large wave of counterfeit antimalarial drugs have
been circulating throughout many areas of Africa and Southeast Asia areas in
which the deadly disease is most prevalent.
Dr. Paul Newton, of the Wellcome Trust-Mahosot
Hospital-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration, described
how he and his colleagues tested antimalarial drugs commonly used, in 11
countries between 2002 and 2010. What
they found was an alarming amount of ineffective drugs intended to treat
malaria, having an equal and opposite effect.
Malaria (a highly infectious disease
transferred from person to person by way of mosquito bites) is like most
diseases in that it can be successfully treated with the correct medications
and in the proper doses. However, the counterfeit drugs obtained and studied by
Newton and his team only contained the minimum amount of the effective
ingredients (artemisinin derivatives), allowing the drugs to pass authenticity
tests but not enough to complete cure a person of the disease. Artemisinin derivatives are largely capable
of treating cases of malaria but, without its full and correct dosage, it can
do more harm than good.
“What the counterfeits have done is basically
watered down the level of drug in the tablet and then they’ve [the criminals
supplying the fake medicine] added in other things that will have no effect
against the malarial parasite,” explains Professor Alan Cowman from the Walter
and Eliza Hall Institute in Victoria, Australia. Cowman is a prominent figure among malarial
researchers, and sees this problem as not only a way of short-changing an
individual of their medicine but also providing the perfect grounds for the
disease to build a resistance to the drugs—kicking the legs out from under
current efforts to stop the spread of the disease in these areas.
In the past, both chloroquine and mefloquine
were used to combat malaria, but their potency was diluted (in much the same
way that current medicine is seeing) down to an amount where the drugs were no
longer able to stand alone. Instead they
now work best when combined with artemisinin derivatives to quell the symptoms
of malaria and work to eradicate it. The
same is feared of the artemisinin derivatives if the fake drugs continue to be
dispersed. Dr. Jimmy Whitworth, the Head
of International Activities at the Wellcome Trust, believes that if a resistant
strain of malaria were to spread in these areas, the results would be
disastrous. “The effect could be devastating on efforts to control malaria in
Africa,” Whitworth points out.
So what work is being down to eliminate the
false medications being brought into areas plagued with malaria?
Dr. Newton and others are looking towards
public health organizations to help prevent further counterfeit medication from
entering and traveling throughout impacted areas, in addition to amping-up the
quality of medicine administered to the patients. Every year approximately 800,000 people die
from malaria throughout the world. According
to a 2009 report, another 450,000 people die ingesting fake medication.
To petition Dr. Margaret Chan, of the World
Health Organization (WHO), and ask for WHO’s attention in doing this, sign the
petition here.
Kelly Hamilton
Green Answers
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