QUARTERLY PRESS REVIEW JULY TO SEPTEMBER 2016
Trafficking in fake medicines continues to increase all over the world at an alarming pace. Counterfeits threaten public health across the globe including in connection with drug addicts’ new practices. North America is under alert after hundreds of fatal overdoses linked to fake opioid painkillers. In Scotland, nine died after taking deadly “street valium”.
Counterfeit medicines are taking both a human and economic toll on us. According to the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property rights (EUIPO) report of September 29, fake medicines cost the European pharmaceutical industry more than €10bn annually and cause the loss of 38,000 direct jobs and 91,000 indirect jobs.
Counterfeits have also become one of the most lucrative sources of financing for organized crime.
Because this is a growing threat for all of us, IRACM has been supporting the World Customs Organization since 2012 in the organization of containers’ interceptions in African seaports to curtail the strategy of traffickers which targets the underprivileged population. The most recent operation, Operation ACIM (Action against Counterfeit and Illicit Medicines) was launched in 16 African countries early September and the results will be disclosed in January 2017.
Also of note this quarter:
- The dismantlement of a vast fake vaccines making ring in Indonesia. The fake vaccines were sold in hospitals and community health centers throughout Indonesia since 2003. The Indonesian government will re-vaccinate children under 10 years of age.
- A man was sentenced to a year prison in Ecuador for pharmaceutical counterfeiting. This is the first time that criminal action against pharmaceutical counterfeiting has been taken in Ecuador
IRACM was founded to respond to the growth of the global counterfeit drug market. Our view is that only a comprehensive approach to anti-counterfeiting involving governments, law enforcement and prevention agencies, citizens and patients will allow overcoming this scourge.
Read the quaterly press review
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