A third of malaria drugs used around the world to keep the spread of the disease at bay are counterfeit, recent data has suggested. According to a study published in the reputed journal the Lancet, around 7 per cent of the drugs tested in India was found to be of poor quality with many being fake.
Researchers who looked at 1,500 samples of seven malaria drugs from seven countries in Southeast Asia said poor-quality and fake tablets are causing drug resistance and treatment failure. “Much of this morbidity and mortality could be avoided if drugs available to patients were efficacious, high quality, and used correctly,” said the Lancet.
Data from 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including over 2,500 drug samples, showed similar results. From 1999 to 2010, seven multi-country surveys with data from seven countries in Southeast Asia included chemical assays or packaging analysis for 1,437 samples of seven anti-malarial drugs.
Of the total 437 samples of drugs, 497 (35 per cent) failed chemical analysis, 423 (46 per cent) of 919 failed packaging analysis, and 450 (36 per cent) of 1,260 were classified as falsified.
The study gains singnificance as according to the British medical journal, 3.3 billion people are at risk of malaria, which is endemic in 106 countries.
“6,55,000 and 1.2 million people die every year from Plasmodium falciparum infection. Children in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia have the highest risk of contracting and dying from malaria,” it added.
Researchers add caution as they believe that poor-quality anti-malarial drugs are very likely to jeopardise the unprecedented progress and investments in control and elimination of malaria made in the past decade.
Anti-malarial drugs comprise 25 per cent of the drugs consumed in malarious countries, and when these drugs are of poor quality, they afflict the most vulnerable populations.