Malaria is spread by mosquito bites directly into the bloodstream. A study has shown that fake and poor quality drugs could be putting millions at risk. Malaria is believed to kill around 800,000 people a year and counterfeit medicines could harm patients and promote drug resistance among malaria parasites, warns the study, funded by the Wellcome Trust. No surprise here to find that some of the fake tablets originated from China.
The researchers, from the Wellcome Trust-Mahosot Hospital-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration, published their work in the Malaria Journal.
They examined fake and substandard anti-malarial drugs that were found on sale in 11 African countries between 2002 and 2010.
They discovered that some counterfeits contained a mixture of the wrong pharmaceutical ingredients which would initially alleviate the symptoms of malaria but would not cure it.
Some of the ingredients in the tablets could cause potentially serious side effects, the study found, especially if they were mixed with other drugs a patient might be taking, like anti-retrovirals to treat HIV.
Another issue is that some of the real drugs are being placed in the treatments such as artemisinin but due to small quantities being used there is a high risk of Malaria becoming immune to the medication as this previously happened with chloroquine and mefloquine. So not only is the risk that the medication isn’t going to heal you there is also a risk its helping malaria develop a resistance to the real treatment which has the potential to increase the fatality rate of the disease.
