September 13, 2023

Substandard medicines blamed for 285,000 childhood malaria, pneumonia deaths

VIdya Krishnan, an Indian Journalist writes about a “dirty secret in global health:” that rich countries get quality medicines and that the poor countries often get poison. Her op-ed in the Sept 11 New York Times describes the regulatory inequities between rich and poor nations. and how these inequities fail to prevent manufacture and export of substandard medicines. Rich countries have well-funded regulators keeping an eye on the safety and quality of drugs; most low income countries don’t have the resources to properly vet imported medicines. She notes that the WHO estimated in 2017 that 10% of all medicines sold in LMICs were considered substandard or falsified, and that independent modeling suggests that this could result in as many as 285,000 children dying every year from malaria or pneumonia.

Check out the op-ed here https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/india-medicine-safety.html