Dr. Michael Omoke, a Nigerian doctor with over a decade of experience, told OCCRP on Thursday that the problem of counterfeit drugs is worsening as medications flood the market without adequate oversight from authorities.
He warned that “in a country where anyone can wake up, manufacture, and sell drugs without a license, you are sure to find a good percentage of fake drugs.”
“Hospitals in Nigeria over the past years admitted more than a thousand victims of adverse drug reactions such as rashes, pain, difficulty in breathing, and even death due to fake drug use,” Omoke added.
A recent report from Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia highlighted that up to 22.6% of medicines in Africa are either fake or substandard, posing a grave risk to the continent’s already fragile public health system. The researchers examined 27 studies and found that among 7,508 medicine samples, 1,639 were confirmed to be substandard or falsified after failing at least one quality test.
Furthermore, a study published on the United States National Library of Medicine website revealed that over a third (34.6%) of medicines are unregistered, with antibiotics comprising a staggering 44% of these unregulated drugs.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated last year that falsified and substandard medicines contribute to up to 500,000 deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa.
Medical experts attribute the widespread issue of counterfeit and substandard medicines in Africa to weak regulatory oversight, the proliferation of free trade zones, inadequate drug registration, soaring demand, and poor importation practices.
Nigerian authorities reported that the prevalence of fake and substandard medicines in the country hit 16% in 2019. They have set a goal to reduce this rate to below the global average of 10% by 2025.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) issues near-daily warnings about counterfeit medicines and reports numerous seizures of fake and substandard drugs nationwide. Last year alone, these seizures totaled billions of Naira (hundreds of thousands of US$).
