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Nurses Raise the Alarm: Counterfeit Medicines Kill International Council of Nurses Launches a Global Anti-counterfeit Campaign
Geneva, 11 May 2005 - Nurses worldwide are
using the occasion of International Nurses Day to draw attention to
the dramatic increase of counterfeit medicines in today's global market.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one in ten medicines
sold worldwide is fake, with no medical effect whatsoever. In
developing countries, up to 25% of the medicines used are counterfeit or
substandard. Some estimates place the annual earnings from
counterfeit medicines at over US $32 billion globally. 1
Counterfeiting is not only costly to consumers, it is a particularly
serious area of crime because it puts the lives and well-being of patients
at risk, leads to loss of confidence in the healthcare professions and in
the quality, safety and efficacy of the medicines they prescribe. Counterfeit medicines can kill. In 1992, 233 Bangladeshi children
died after taking a paracetamol-based syrup that was tainted with
antifreeze. In 1995, 2,500 children in Niger died after taking a
fake meningitis vaccination. Of the one million deaths that occur
from malaria annually, as many as 200,000 would be avoidable if the
medicines available were effective, of good quality and used correctly.
"Patients and consumers are the primary victims of counterfeit
medicines. In order to protect them from the harmful effects of
counterfeit medicines it is necessary to provide them with appropriate
information and education on the consequences of counterfeit medicines,"
says Christine Hancock, President of the International Council of
Nurses. "As frontline health care providers, nurses are key players
in increased vigilance for counterfeit medicines and increased reporting
of possible counterfeit drugs." In their campaign to improve patient safety, nurses worldwide are
hoping to raise awareness of the increasing availability of counterfeit
and substandard drugs and to lobby for fair prices of medicines, as the
high cost of medicines in developing countries makes them unaffordable to
large sectors of the population and increases the risk of
counterfeiting. Unaffordable essential medicines can lead people who
cannot afford legal medicines to seek out alternative sources. ICN
is working with governments, industry and regulatory authorities in this
initiative and encourages national nurses associations to do the same at
the national level. ______________________
Editor's Note:
ICN/PR05 #9 © 1899 International
Council of Nurses (ICN) Copying, downloading
and distribution of material from the ICN web page is permitted as long as credit in print is given and that the material will not be used for commercial or for-profit purposes without permission.
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