“Trafficking of fake drugs, hidden side of failing health system in Africa”: A Reflection

“The real fight to overcome this phenomenon, is the awareness of our heads of state that it is up to our states to set up health systems that truly and effectively meet the needs of populations and especially populations of the poorest,” he reflected.

“In Africa, it is difficult for the poor to get adequate health care because our health systems are failing; it is unfortunate, but such is the reality,” the Ivorian religious missionary laments.

“If the rich in Africa have recourse to European hospitals because (they are) well equipped with good health care systems, the poor are treated in the street. And it is unfortunately in the street that the traffic of fake medicines flourishes,” Fr. Zagore has reflected.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 42 percent of all fake medicines reported to them between 2013 and 2017 were from Africa.

In the considered opinion of the West African missionary, “establishing sustainable and robust health systems for all is an imperative since the right to health is a fundamental right for everyone. It is only through this channel that the traffic of fake medicines will go away on its own.”

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According to the summit sponsor, Brazzaville Foundation, a UK-based non-profit charity that has been involved in the fight against trafficking in substandard and falsified (SF) medicines since 2017, while the sale and distribution of fake drugs is a global problem, it is acute in Africa where “upto 60%  of medicines in circulation are believed to be substandard or falsified.”

“Each year, they (SFs) are estimated to cost hundreds of thousands of African lives, including 120,000 children under the age of five who die as a result of fake antimalarials,” the organization has explained.

Besides costing human lives, an advisory board member of Brazzaville Foundation, Jean-Louis Bruguiere revealed in a press conference at the end of the summit that “terrorism groups including Hezbollah and Hamas are financed by falsified medicine trafficking, but criminalization is so weak that traffickers are punished with ridiculous fines and sentences.”