Sunday, January 22, 2012

Alarm sounded as fake malaria drugs found to contain Viagra



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By JOY WANJA MURAYA jwanja@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Saturday, January 21  2012 at  22:30
The government will on Monday receive findings from market surveillance on the safety and efficiency of anti-malaria drugs in the country.
And, with 28 million of 40 million Kenyans at risk of contracting malaria, there are reports that counterfeit drugs could hamper the fight against the killer disease in the country.
Head of Division of Malaria Control John Logedi told the Sunday Nation that samples collected a fortnight ago are currently being tested to establish whether counterfeit malaria drugs are being sold or distributed in the country.
“We carry out quarterly surveillance of drugs in the field to ensure they are of good quality,” Dr Logedi said in a telephone interview on Saturday.
Selling counterfeit drugs
A recent report by Wellcome Trust-Mahosot Hospital-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration cited Kenya as one of 11 African countries selling counterfeit anti-malarial drugs.
The findings of Poor quality vital anti-malarials in Africa – an urgent neglected public health priority, a study of suspicious drugs collected between 2002 and 2010 in 11 African countries and in Asia en route to Africa, are published in the Malaria Journal.
Of particular concern is that some of the counterfeit anti-malarial drugs contained Sildenafil citrate, also known as Viagra, the “the little blue pill,” made by Pfizer used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension.
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Possible side-effects of Viagra include a change in constant headaches, a change in the patient’s perception of green and blue colours and the possibility of a heart attack in some.
Some of the anti-malarials were also found to contain anti-retroviral and anti-epileptic drugs.
The inclusion of these chemicals, the authors warned, could lead to dangerous drug interactions that could prove lethal to unsuspecting patients.
Small quantities of Artemisinin derivatives, the main ingredients in malarial drugs, are included in some of the counterfeit products to ensure that they pass authenticity tests.
“Criminals are producing diverse harmful anti-malarial counterfeits with important public health consequences,” read part of the report published in the Malaria Journal.
According to the report, dangerous anti-malarial counterfeits are being produced and distributed in Africa, fuelling drug resistance in the continent.
Destroy hope
Dr Paul Newton, the lead researcher on the study, said the presence of counterfeits would destroy the renewed hope for malaria control in Africa and could kill many sufferers who might otherwise survive.
In many parts of the world, malaria parasites have developed resistance to a number of medicines, necessitating more stringent measures to deal with the disease, especially in rural areas.
Over the past decade, a new group of anti-malarials known as Artemesinin-based combination therapies or ACTs, has brought new hope in the fight against the disease.

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