Fake malaria drugs

Fighting malaria is threatened by counterfeit medicines

05/22/2012

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide die of malaria infection. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO), voluntary aid organizations and national health authorities in the affected countries have been increasing their commitment to the fight against the dangerous tropical disease for years - successfully.

However, researchers at the National Institutes of Health in the United States (NIH) are now warning that their success against counterfeit malaria drugs may be jeopardizing, according to the news agency „dpa“. According to the scientists around Gaurvika Nayyar had evaluated several previous studies from Southeast Asia and Africa, to discover possible obstacles in the fight against malaria. They found that 20 to 42 percent of the malaria drugs tested were of poor quality or falsified. The corresponding preparations were offered in 28 countries. These inferior malaria drugs threaten to undo past successes in the fight against malaria, write Gaurvika Nayyar and colleagues in the journal „ The Lancet Infectious Diseases“.

Fight against malaria a Millennium Development Goal
The fight against malaria is one of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) adopted in 2000. According to this, the spread of malaria should be halted by 2015 and a trend reversal should be achieved. In fact, considerable successes have since been achieved in the fight against malaria, with the number of deaths falling by just under a quarter to 655,000 malaria deaths in 2010, according to the WHO. Although the goal of controlling so-called malaria is far from being achieved, the intensive efforts of WHO, national health authorities and aid organizations have borne fruit. A significant part of this was also due to the improved medical care of the affected people on site. However, the current study results of the scientists around Gaurvika Nayyar show that the successes so far are shaky.

Resistance of malaria pathogens through counterfeit drugs
So far, according to the US scientists are no reliable data on the distribution of counterfeit or malaria drugs malfunctioning, but the current study revealed frightening numbers. Up to 42 percent of the drugs were poor or fake as part of their investigation, Gaurvika Nayyar and colleagues report. These inferior malaria drugs are jeopardizing the success of previous efforts, the researchers said. Because the intake of incorrectly dosed drugs lead to the development of resistances of the pathogens, as most recently in the border region between Thailand and Cambodia against the drug Artemisinin. Since artemisinin is one of the most important active ingredients in combination products for malaria, the health authority worldwide was particularly worried about the proven resistance. If the resistance to common malaria drugs continue to increase, then threatens a massive re-rise in deaths, warn the experts. The potential danger of malaria is illustrated by the figures given by Gaurvika Nayyar. According to the expert of the Fogarty International Center of the NIH „3.3 billion people are threatened with malaria, which occurs in 106 countries.“

Different numbers to malaria deaths
Malaria infection is characterized primarily by high, recurrent fevers, accompanied by chills and gastrointestinal complaints. Especially children are endangered in a special way and often succumb to the consequences of the infection in case of failure to provide medical care. There is no consensus in the scientific community on the number of actual deaths, with WHO predicting 655,000 malaria deaths in 2010, with US researchers at the University of Washington predicting a death toll of approximately 1.2 million. Most severely affected were children under the age of five, which accounted for 56 percent of malaria deaths. Although a decline can be seen in the numbers of US researchers, the data obtained show that reaching the Millennium Development Goal can already be ruled out at this point. It is to be hoped that the spread of counterfeit and inferior malaria drugs will not lead to a renewed increase in the number of infections in the future. (Fp)

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Image: Stefan Klaffehn