Fake Coartem on sale

The National Drug Authority has warned health workers against dispensing and selling counterfeit anti-malarial drugs that are in circulation in the country.

Coartem is a registered antimalarial medicine manufactured by Novartis.

Speaking to New Vision yesterday, Fredrick Ssekyana, the NDA spokesperson, said that counterfeit Coartem with the Green Leaf AMFm wallet packs have been found on the market with the following pack details; Batch number of NOF 2153, date of manufacture of June 2015 and expiry date of July 2018.

“NDA Quality Control Laboratory tested the Wallet Pack Counterfeit Coartem® and results indicated no active ingredients of Artemether or Lumefantrine,” said Ssekyana.

Ssekyana also noted that the wallet packs of 24 tablets bear a shelf life of three years, which is not representative of the genuine Coartem whose shelf life is two years.

In a statement released by NDA yesterday indicated that Novartis Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of the genuine Coartem, through the local technical representative Surgipharm Uganda Ltd stopped the supply of the Green Leaf AMFm Wallet pack Coartem to the private sector in 2014.

He asked the general public, especially importers, distributors and retailers of pharmaceutical products to take note of the aforementioned batches of Coartem Tablets and avoid patronising or stocking them.

Ssekyana advised any individual or body in possession of the fake batches to hand them over to the nearest NDA office in different parts of the country.

“It is a criminal offence to deal in substandard, spurious, falsely-labelled, falsified and counterfeit products as they greatly endanger the lives of the population. Should you come across any of the aforementioned packs or any other suspicious packs, urgently report to the NDA,” he noted.

He said the genuine Coartem are only available in Public health facilities, not private facilities.