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Biotech / Medical : Biotech News
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From: Doc Bones2/17/2008 5:01:11 PM
   of 7143
 
Fake antimalaria drugs seized

Members of an international task force this week released details of an investigation that led to the arrest of a man from China's Yunnan Province in 2006 for allegedly trafficking almost a quarter of a million doses' of a fake antimalaria drug. One of the few effective strategies against malaria—a mosquito-borne disease that claims the lives of more than a million people a year in Africa and Asia—is artemisinin, or qinghaosu, a compound derived from the Chinese herb artemisia (wormwood). But there has been a growing black market for pills passed off as artemisinin-based, leaving duped buyers vulnerable to the potentially deadly condition.

In an effort to crack down on bogus suppliers, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific organized a group of scientists, public health workers and law enforcement officers in 2006 to trace the source of the fakes. Researchers confirmed that 195 (49.9 percent) of 391 suspected counterfeit samples of artesunate (an artemisinin derivative) collected in Southeast Asia were indeed bogus, containing at most 12 milligrams of the ingredient per tablet, compared with about 50 milligrams per genuine tablet. Chinese authorities traced some of the samples back to southern China, where they seized 24,000 packs (10 percent) linked to the Yunnan suspect. They say the rest may account for up to half the artesunate sold to neighboring Myanmar.

(PLoS Medicine)

medicine.plosjournals.org

sciam.com
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