Of 110 containers of pharmaceuticals entering West Africa searched in a special operation coordinated by the World Customs Organisation (WCO), 84 were found to contain fake pharmaceuticals. 82 million doses of fake medicine were confiscated which included anti-malarial and anti-HIV drugs and antibiotics.
Here in sub-Saharan Africa, over two children die every minute of malaria – which in 98% of cases can be cured with US $6 worth of genuine drugs. A spokesman for the WCO on BBC World Service radio last night said that the number of deaths caused directly by counterfeit medicine in Africa every year was in the hundreds of thousands. He called it “genocide”.
I might not use that word, but it is beyond doubt true that supplying counterfeit drugs to Africa causes more deaths than narcotics, than the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East combined, and several hundred times more deaths than terrorism.
The supply of fake life-saving drugs to the world’s poorest people is not only on a far greater scale than terrorism, it is morally just as evil, killing innocent civilian populations, particularly children, on an unimaginable scale of slaughter.
So why does this terrible evil receive virtually no mainstream media exposure? Is it because it happens to Africans, and the media coverage of Africa is so negative and relentlessly concentrated on disaster that it leads to a perception that the natural state of Africans is to die of disease?
It is worth noting that this terrible crime is being committed against Africa from outside – almost none of the fake pharmaceuticals are made in Africa. Here in Ghana I know the good people at the Food and Drugs Administration; they are well organised, well-qualified and well-equipped. But they are fighting a huge tide of fake drugs and organised crime on a massive scale.
In Ghana the fake drugs come overwhelngly from China amd India, and I suspect that is true across the BRICS. This terrible dark side – the WCO estimates that the counterfeit drugs trade yields profits of US$9 billion a year – should be borne in mind when considering the success of the BRICS and their possible counterweight to Western influence in foreign affairs.
India and China have vastly more economic resources and greater government control than the African states whose people are the victims of this evil trade. The word “genocide” used by the WCO spokesman causes you to think in this case, because this is mass killing perpetrated by Asians against Africans. The exporting states must face up to their moral obligation to take responsibility for the quality control of the manufacture of their exports, and in particular for controls at ports to ensure fake drugs are not exported.
The United Nations and the World Health Organisation should take action to ensure that the xporting state has a legal obligation effectively to stop the export of counterfeit drugs, with effective redress for victim states against the exporting state.
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This is capitalism, corporations are people, let the buyer beware, anyone can compete with these guys just sell your own junk. The only requirement is to show a profit, profit is the goal never health because capitalist know sick people will always be in the marketplace so the more sick the better the market place.
Yet somehow inspite of the four horsemen inc riding across the landscape for 50 odd years now. There are still 800 million more africans than in the 50′s.
50 years is the version that may be palatable. The truth be told is that this is just another genocide.
Blacks have been being systematically lied to and betrayed over hundreds by the Chinese of whoever brought in these fake drugs.
Fact is, they ship them all over the world and not just Africa.
Africans are very stupid and ignorant to keep accepting the wholesale destruction of their countries. The Asians, Whites, and Arabs practice the use
of sepratism & Racism and it is a very natural order of and for life. All humans are responsible for their own race in this world.
If those simple minded African idiots can’t tell the difference by now so WTF.
It is too bad that the blacks can’t think past these equations. Why do they think outsiders want to be their friends. Are they not aware They don’t to get the concept of building wealth and unity. I guess not. I know about co-in-telpro and the destruction of the black civilization for over 500 years but we still are here. The African people always end up like Sadaam Hussein, or Kadaffi, and other hated despised enemies of the United States and the rest of the world.
The Asian people are the first traitors and enemies of the black african people.
Black people all over this world are in danger of genocide but they can not handle racism. They can’t wait for jesus to come, and they have given all of their power away for lies and inclusion here in America. .
Racism=The act of one group helping another group for their survival as they see it as opposed to aiding another group with some differences.
Sort of like I like the forty niners and patronize their games and sports equipment over the bengals. I shop at Rainbow Foods instead of Safeway which also has organic foods.
NAACP and other degenerate idiots who blow smoke up your ass with their wild assertation of becoming white is well infused into the black race in America. UNless the American blacks and white people can get their shit together it is virtually over for the rest of the planet.
In US it’s just the opposite. The drugs are real but mostly unnecessary. The results are still the same, tens of thousands of deaths and massive profits for criminals.