Drugs are smuggled by powerful people
Jun 22, 2008
<b>Letter of the day</b><br><br>EDITOR—I wish to comment on your article, “Fake malaria drugs on sale†by Charles Adome that was published on May 16. The story that highlighted issues from a research paper presented by the leader of the research team, Roger Bate of the American Enterprise In
Letter of the day
EDITOR—I wish to comment on your article, “Fake malaria drugs on sale†by Charles Adome that was published on May 16. The story that highlighted issues from a research paper presented by the leader of the research team, Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute, was either taken out of context or the facts in it were deliberately distorted.
In their response to the research paper, board members of the National Drug Authority, Dr. Richard Odoi Adome and Swaibu Mukiibi, reportedly said fake medicines are more likely to be found in drug stores than in registered pharmacies. Mukiibi compounded the issue by advising the public to buy medicine only from registered pharmacies in total disregard to the core issues raised by the report.
The research findings published in an online journal by the Public Library of Science, an international organisation that provides unrestricted access to science literature and publishes works from all over the world, were in black and white.
Below are the excerpts:
Research assistants posing as ordinary customers bought various anti-malarials from randomly selected pharmacies in Kampala and 35% of the drugs sampled were either fake or had fewer quantities of ingredients than required. Similar tests were done in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Sampled drugs included sulfadoxine-pyromethamine (commonly known as fansidar), amodiaqine (commonly known as camaquin), mefloquine, artesunate, artemether, dihydro-artemisinin and artemether-lumefantrine (commonly known as Coartem. Overall 48% of the sub-standard drugs were made in Africa, while 32% were made in Asia. Contrary to popular belief that European drugs are of high standards, the researchers found that 24% of the sub-standard drugs were of European origin. None of the four US manufactured samples failed the test.
The two officials, Adome and Mukiibi, should be reminded that drug shops were phased out of Kampala 10 years ago. in any case, research findings never mentioned drug shops at any one time.
Pharmacy business is the domain of Asian ‘investors’. For the two officials to advise people to buy from “registered pharmacies†(could they move a step further and list them?) would be misguiding the public. About the European drugs, it is highly possible that businessmen, in pursuit to gain easy money, connive with some Chinese and Indian companies and plagiarise European medicine company generic brand names which are then bootlegged here.
The claim that 24% of the sub-standard drugs sampled were found to have originated from Europe cannot be true.
Adome and Mukiibi need an education. to smuggle drugs into the country requires a much more sophisticated ring—one that has the money to organise the manufacture, purchase and eventual shipping of the contraband into the country and thereafter talk to the powers that be into cooperation and compliance.
Drug shops, even if they existed in Kampala, have no economic muscle to carry on and sustain such lucrative trade.
Hannington Tusubira
New York
EDITOR—I wish to comment on your article, “Fake malaria drugs on sale†by Charles Adome that was published on May 16. The story that highlighted issues from a research paper presented by the leader of the research team, Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute, was either taken out of context or the facts in it were deliberately distorted.
In their response to the research paper, board members of the National Drug Authority, Dr. Richard Odoi Adome and Swaibu Mukiibi, reportedly said fake medicines are more likely to be found in drug stores than in registered pharmacies. Mukiibi compounded the issue by advising the public to buy medicine only from registered pharmacies in total disregard to the core issues raised by the report.
The research findings published in an online journal by the Public Library of Science, an international organisation that provides unrestricted access to science literature and publishes works from all over the world, were in black and white.
Below are the excerpts:
Research assistants posing as ordinary customers bought various anti-malarials from randomly selected pharmacies in Kampala and 35% of the drugs sampled were either fake or had fewer quantities of ingredients than required. Similar tests were done in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Sampled drugs included sulfadoxine-pyromethamine (commonly known as fansidar), amodiaqine (commonly known as camaquin), mefloquine, artesunate, artemether, dihydro-artemisinin and artemether-lumefantrine (commonly known as Coartem. Overall 48% of the sub-standard drugs were made in Africa, while 32% were made in Asia. Contrary to popular belief that European drugs are of high standards, the researchers found that 24% of the sub-standard drugs were of European origin. None of the four US manufactured samples failed the test.
The two officials, Adome and Mukiibi, should be reminded that drug shops were phased out of Kampala 10 years ago. in any case, research findings never mentioned drug shops at any one time.
Pharmacy business is the domain of Asian ‘investors’. For the two officials to advise people to buy from “registered pharmacies†(could they move a step further and list them?) would be misguiding the public. About the European drugs, it is highly possible that businessmen, in pursuit to gain easy money, connive with some Chinese and Indian companies and plagiarise European medicine company generic brand names which are then bootlegged here.
The claim that 24% of the sub-standard drugs sampled were found to have originated from Europe cannot be true.
Adome and Mukiibi need an education. to smuggle drugs into the country requires a much more sophisticated ring—one that has the money to organise the manufacture, purchase and eventual shipping of the contraband into the country and thereafter talk to the powers that be into cooperation and compliance.
Drug shops, even if they existed in Kampala, have no economic muscle to carry on and sustain such lucrative trade.
Hannington Tusubira
New York