Two WHO reports released on Tuesday estimated that roughly
10.5% of medicines being sold in low and middle income countries (LMIC) could
be substandard or falsified. Hence, they estimated the size of the dubious
drugs market in these countries at about $30 billion. However, experts said the
estimates were grossly exaggerated.
While substandard medicines have been a matter of concern in
many countries, several member states are expressing concern about the
findings, especially the estimation of prevalence of substandard and falsified
medical products in LIMC using an “unscientific methodology”, said a statement
issued by Third World Network (TWN), a transnational alternative policy group.
Of the two reports, one was on cases reported to the WHO’s
Global Surveillance and Monitoring System (GSMS) for dubious drugs. The cases
reported between 2013 and 2016 were categorised as “falsified”, “suspected
falsified”, “substandard”, “diverted”, “stolen”, and “unlicensed” products.
However, after the World Health Assembly decided in 2016 to categorise
compromised medicines as “substandard” and “falsified”, the GSMS cases appear
to have been automatically categorised as one of these two, said TWN. It
pointed out that no break-up was provided for the data. The second report,looked
at 100 published papers that represented medicine quality surveys in 88 member
states. The estimate that 10.5% of medicines were falsified or substandard was
drawn from this study.
TWN said the first draft report submitted to the WHO steering
committee in 2016 said: “Most of the (100) studies were conducted in Africa and
Asia, and many focused on anti-malarial and antibiotic medicines. Because of
this sampling bias, it is not possible to use the 8.7% figure as a global
estimate of the prevalence of substandard medicines...” Yet, the final version
of the study continues using this methodology, it added.
Source: THE TIMES OF INDIA-29th November,2017
