2018: Shortage causes supply of fake quinine tablets in Cameroon

As part of due diligence testing, member hospitals of the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network (www.epnetwork.org) across the sub-Saharan region are regularly verifying the quality of medicine from their own supply chains using GPHF-Minilabs. Due to a recent shortage, emergency supplies of quinine tablets obtained from a local wholesaler triggered off yet again another drama on dodgy anti-malaria pills in Cameroon. One hospital obtained sixty thousand tablets each containing just 8 instead of 300 mg of quinine. Compared to the label, this makes just 2.6% of the total claim. Next to the individual health risk for patients consuming sub-potent antimalarial medicines, fake medicines containing a fraction of antimalarials only are also forming a collective health risk considering the proliferation of protozoal resistance. More on this case can be found on GPHF’s Facebook timeline.

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