Latest News
21-Apr-2011Madagascar: A dozen Minilabs to protect malaria treatment against fake pills nationwide
Coincidental with the forthcoming World Malaria Day next week Monday, Madagascar’s central medical and pharmaceutical supply organisation SALAMA just procured a dozen Minilabs for the detection of harmful counterfeit medicines throughout the island in the Indian Ocean next to mainland Africa. The supply is funded by the Affordable Medicines Facillity for Malaria (AMFm) run by the Global Fund. On arrival at the capital of Antananarivo, they will be disseminated to the regional health offices and join a further seven Minilabs funded by USP/PQM some years ago already. They shall point to low dose spurious and substandard quality antimalarials being instantly life-threatening when reaching patients and one of many other factors for the proliferation of resistant malaria strains
01-Apr-2011
France helps Cambodia in combating spurious medicines. Minilabs part of strategy.
Much impressed by the success of the Cambodian authorities in combating spurious medicines, the French Ambassador to Cambodia H.E. Christian Connan inaugurated the new office building of the central committee for combating counterfeit products in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh just recently. During the opening ceremony, the Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister H.E. Sar Kheng and his Undersecretary of State H.E. So Phan were given a short introduction into the Minilab technology especially developed for rapid drug quality screening and counterfeit medicines detection. Cambodia is known for the emergence of multiresistant malaria and the proliferation of counterfeit antimalarials, each issue alone having deadly consequences. The new centre has been funded by the FSP (Priority Solidarity Fund) Mekong Project and can be seen as a direct result from lessons learned from the Mekong Roll Back Malaria drug quality monitoring programme run by the USP/USAID technical assistance between 2003 and 2009 during which abundant antimalarial pills with no drug content were found. From that time, the use of 50 Minilabs and the work of the USP training and project team are already legendary and are forming the blue print for other programmes in Africa, too.
23-Mar-2011
Frankfurt: Twenty Minilabs were waved away to Nigeria today
Waved away at Frankfurt airport by representatives from the British and Nigerian Embassy as well as staff from the Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF) and Technology Transfer Marburg (TTM), twenty Minilabs funded by the British Crown Agents are now on their way to Nigeria where the Partnerships for Transforming Health Systems (PATHS) is eagerly awaiting the technology for the detection of harmful counterfeit antimalarials and other antiinfective medicines in the states of Enugu, Jigawa, Kaduna and Kano. Managed by own country means, a further delivery of ten Minilabs to other states is pending.
28-Feb-2011
Over 400 Minilabs now in place
After the Crown Agents recently awarded a contract for 20 Minilabs for shipment to Nigeria, a total of 420 mini-laboratories will soon be in place in over 70 countries of the African, Asian-Pacific and Latin American region. “The key is that our Minilabs are reaching people where protection against counterfeit and substandard quality medicines is needed instantly. Hence, in countries and drug supply organisations where appropriate testing capacities are still lacking.” says Richard Jähnke, project manager at the Global Pharma Health Fund. The very first Minilab went to a hospital in Mindanao run by the Doctors for Developing Countries in the Philippines twelve years ago. However, the concept of the Minilab really gained momentum when assessing and using more of them in Roll Back Malaria Partnership programmes of the Sub-Saharan, Mekong and Amazon region. Beyond that, over a 100 Minilabs have been deployed by technical assistance programmes of the United States Pharmacopeia alone. This helped in boosting testing capacity, identify harmful counterfeit or substandard quality medicines and protect public health and patient safety in about 20 countries. Thus, countless of lives have been saved by the detection and removal of fake antimalarials throughout all these years; the latest case being the identification of zero-potent antimalarial pills found at roadside shops during a Minilab training exercise at the health service of the Cameroon Baptist Convention earlier this year.
28-Jan-2011
Cameroon: Counterfeit antimalarial pills sold at roadside shops
For Minilab training and implementation at the health service of the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) last week, various anti-infective drugs were sampled on random in kiosk shops in and around Tika. For the treatment of malaria, outdated SP medicines were found to be still in circulation in small business operations of the private sector self-medication market. Beyond this, testing showed that all tablets from one SP brand sampled contained zero percent active ingredient. The same street shops also sold completely degraded penicillin tablets. The CBC warned Tiko’s communities about these counterfeit and substandard quality incidences at Sunday services. In fact, the Minilab’s testing campaign was included in the sermon, samples of fake medicines were shown around and readings from the chromatoplates have been discussed in the church. This was enough to rock the boat and spread the word into neighbouring communities and other healthcare facilities, too.
- Pictures from the training including fake malaria pills
- Africa: Vatican denounces drug counterfeiters
06-Jan-2011
GPHF-Minilab: Project Retrospective 2010
Proliferation of counterfeit medicines continues and combating this harmful trade is ongoing. Hence, the need for Minilabs was again high in 2010. On average, one Minilab was sent into overseas projects every week. Overall, 394 Minilabs have been delivered to over 70 countries since project start twelve years ago. In 2010, users were mainly health authorities from countries in the African, Asian and West Pacific region. The biggest support came again from the Promoting the Quality of Medicines programme, a technical aid run jointly by the US Pharmacopeia and US Agency for International Development to improve pharmaceutical services within public health systems and priority disease programmes. In contrast to this, minor initiatives are focussing on due diligence projects when implementing Minilabs at medical stores and drug supply organisations. The Minilab’s method inventory has been extended now covering 52 active pharmaceutical ingredients, the bulk of them being anti-infective agents to treat malaria, TB and AIDS. For 2011, another supplement is scheduled. It will cover five more compounds from the same treatment categories.
21-Dec-2010
Indonesia: Detecting undeclared antiretrovirals in traditional medicines using Minilabs
After an introductory training given by the Global Pharma Health Fund to fifteen staff members from central and regional drug and food inspectorates and laboratories at the national medicines quality control laboratory in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta last week, six Minilabs procured by the country are now being implemented in all main cities on Java island. Here, they shall serve to detect traditional medicines (Jamus) illegally and harmfully fortified with antiretroviral prescription drugs to enhance their performance. Protecting city and local communities against this kind of fraud requires constant testing by health authorities, a job for which the Minilab with its rapid and high sample throughput at low cost has been invented for. Funds for the training have been supplied by the local branch of Merck of which the parent company in Germany maintains the Global Pharma Health Fund, a charitable organisation running the Minilab project together with its partners all over the world since many years already.
07-Dec-2010
Rwanda: Cross-border Minilab training started
A Minilab training course performed by the Partnership for Supply Chain Management (PFSCM) for the national medicines procurement unit started in Kigali (Rwanda) on Monday this week. The training is joined by staff from the Association Regionale D'Approvisionnement en Medicament (ASRAMES) from Goma (Congo DR). Both supply organisations are working to deliver quality essential medicines to their healthcare facilities whereby the NGO ASRAMES is mainly supported by ECHO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Fondation Damien to care about the people in the Congolese Kivu province. PFSCM is a capacity building programme maintained jointly by Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and John Snow Inc. (JSI). On both sides, the Minilabs shall protect the storage facilities and their beneficiaries against the infiltration of harmful counterfeit medicines.
25-Nov-2010
Ghana: Counterfeit antimalarials found in hospitals across the country
Within the Medicines Quality Monitoring programme set up by the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) in Ghana, many counterfeit antimalarials have again been detected in hospitals across the country throughout this year. In 2009, the same project already uncovered a counterfeit version of Novartis' Coartem® ,a key antimalarial widely used in sub-Saharan Africa. The programme runs several Minilabs for rapid drug quality screening allowing high sample throughput at low cost. Even after all these findings and a recall of 13 different products it cannot be excluded that more fakes of harmful quality are still circulating in the market. Hence, pharmacy and hospital procurement personnel should be "more vigilant about their suppliers” said the US Pharmacopeia’s technical assistance programme (PQM) supporting the FDB surveillance project.
11-Nov-2010
Samoa and Papua New Guinea favour Minilab use
Samoa and Papua New Guinea (PNG) will use Minilabs as a first step to boost medicines testing capacity in order to protect their people against harmful counterfeit medicines. To ensure optimal use of their Minilabs, a training course on appropriate test methods has been performed by the GPHF Project Manager Richard Jähnke in Samoa’s capital Apia last week. Staff from the pharmacy division of Samoa’s National Health Service and from PNG’s Central Public Health Laboratory will now be able to perform due diligence and rapid drug quality verification studies for counterfeit medicines detection completely on their own. The National Hospital ‘Tupua Tamasese Meaole’, located in Apia, hosted the training for eight people for one week. Funding came from the Samoan Operational Tender issued by the Asian Development Bank. Frankfurt/Apia covers the longest distance on planet earth between the point of Minilab assembly and point of use. Actually 13,000 air miles.
25-Oct-2010
Cambodia: Police attaché of the French Embassy donates Minilabs
The Police attaché of the French Embassy in Phnom Penh donates two Minilabs to Cambodia's medicines inspectorate for a quick detection of spurious antimalarial and antituberculosis medicines endangering public health and patient safety in the country. In addition, the donation supports current activities of the USP Promoting the Quality of Medicines programme there. For his Cambodian colleagues, the police attaché regularly provides advice on all kinds of organised crime in particular when being of cross-border scale within the Southeast Asian region. This includes the trade in falsified pharmaceutical products, too.
20-Oct-2010
GPHF-Minilab project in full swing
For the detection of harmful counterfeit medicines, USP, MSH and GPHF are running a series of Minilab trainings for drug quality monitoring and due diligence projects on country and local level, for example hospitals, in autumn this year. Concerning this matter, the USP Promoting the Quality of Medicines programme currently works on refresher trainings and TB medicines testing for staff from health authorities in Cambodia and Kenya, the MSH Center for Pharmaceutical Management will perform Minilab courses for the national health service in Rwanda including cross-border contacts to Goma (East Congo) and the GPHF itself will soon train health authorities from three countries (Samoa, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea) on how to make best use of their Minilabs. GPHF also funds a further training during Minilab implementation at the health service of the Cameroon Baptist Convention virtually preluding a large scale Minilab operation in fifteen countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) next year.
15-Oct-2010
Global hunt for online supply of counterfeit medicines very successful
Within “Operation Pangea III”, a joint international enforcement action piloted by Interpol and the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (WHO/IMPACT), authorities from over 40 countries raided illegal internet pharmacies, seized thousands of potentially harmful medicines and arrested 76 suspects across the globe this week. Investigations are still ongoing.
12-Oct-2010
Thailand: Massive seizure of fake medicines
Thai authorities recently seized large quantities of counterfeit and illegally imported medicines worth well over 3 million US dollars at one major drug supplier alone. Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanavisit said that the latest haul of fake medicines was part of the ministry's campaign to keep substandard drugs away from consumers. In neighbouring country Cambodia, almost 20 tons of fake medicines were seized and destroyed in August this year already. Both actions can be seen also as an outcome of major antimalarial drug quality monitoring studies performed in recent years in the Greater Mekong region, the results of which having been eye openers for authorities and politicians.
14-Sep-2010
GPHF Frankfurt: Manual Supplement 2010 now also available in French and Spanish
Since more than ten years, GPHF-Minilabs are providing affordable drug assays based on thin layer chromatography for easy counterfeit medicines detection. More than 350 units have been supplied to drug supply organisations, medicines regulatory authorities and other healthcare facilities across 70 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America already. First published in English, the supplement 2010 is now available in French and Spanish , too. For 52 active ingredients, mostly anti-infectives, the dosage strength of finished drug products can now be verified fast and easy anywhere in the world.
02-Sep-2010
Africa: Vatican denounces drug counterfeiters
“Fake tuberculosis and malaria drugs alone are estimated to kill 700,000 people a year”, says the missionary press agency of the Vatican. “A large part of these victims are African”. Counterfeit medicines pose a high public health risk and subpotent anti-infective medicines promotes drug resistance. Hence, “the development of germs resistant to antibiotics and other treatments is a problem that affects all humanity, not just Africans. It is therefore in the best interest of all concerned that smuggling of counterfeit drugs be fought against.” Diocesan pharmacies of the National Catholic Health and Pharmaceutical Services in Ghana were among the first drug supply organisations to establish Minilabs for counterfeit medicines detection. An appropriate due diligence project for the health services of the Cameroon Baptist Church is pending, and next year, Minilabs may well become the core technology for a major drug quality monitoring study in the West African region.
30-Aug-2010
East Africa: police seize 10 tonnes of fake medicines
Supported by Interpol, WHO and the International Medical Product Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT), police, customs and medicines regulatory authorities from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar seized 10 tons of counterfeit medicines in July and August this year. This enforcement action is an extension of Operation Mamba I and Mamba II performed in the East African region throughout summer 2008 and 2009 respectively.
25-Aug-2010
Tanzania: Due to heavy counterfeiting, sale of all Metakelfin antimalarial medicines banned
Metakelfin is liable to frequent counterfeiting in East Africa since many years and a video documentary on this dangerous trade has been produced recently. Due to the latest presence of counterfeit tablets in the market, health authorities now suspended the import, distribution, sale and use of all Metakelfin antimalarial products. The ban is in the interest of public health and patient safety. The announcement of the Tanzanian Food and Drug Authorities can be accessed here.
20-Aug-2010
Cambodia: Tons of counterfeit medicines seized
Enforcement officials destroyed 19 tons of fake pharmaceuticals confiscated from city pharmacies and drug smugglers since March this year. This success can be seen as an overall outcome of Cambodia’s effort to strengthen its medicines regulatory systems and boost its drug testing capacity combining Minlab field tests with fully-fledged lab testing on central level in the recent years.
05-Jul-2010
West Africa: Minilabs highly ranked to help in combating counterfeit medicines
The incidence of counterfeit medicines in the West African sub-region is high and varies between 15 and 50% across countries. The prevalence of spurious medicines has led to reported therapeutic failures, drug resistance and in some cases, death on a rather alarming scale. In order to address this challenge for public health, regional strategies and an action plan have been discussed among health and enforcement officials from fifteen ECOWAS countries, assistance agencies (WAHO, IMPACT, USP/PQM etc.) and other stakeholders (Interpol, industry etc.) in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, last week. One focus was on the Minilab technology which will go a long way to help in counterfeit medicines detection in this region. Being self-contained, they can verify drug quality fast and cheap even in remote settings and feed national authorities, World Health Organization WHO and Interpol with data and samples of phoney drugs for fully-fledged testing and further criminal investigations. The blue print of action comes from drug quality monitoring studies performed in the Greater Mekong sub-region and subsequent seizures of fake medicines in abundant quantities under Operation Storm.
23-Jun-2010
Internet: Counterfeit antiviral contains antibiotic
Acting as ghost client, the crime investigation unit of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just recently obtained fake Tamiflu over the internet. Rather than containing the antiviral oseltamivir it contained the antibiotic cloxacillin which may lead to life-threatening conditions for people being allergic to penicillin. This is yet again another incident where spurious Tamiflu managed to infiltrate the legal drug supply chain and this is why the Minilab holds a non-sophisticated test for rapid oseltamivir verification in its method inventory since many years already. A consumer warning about fake antiviral medication was issued by the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) during the swine flu outbreak a year ago.
26-May-2010
World Health Organization committed to combat counterfeit medicines
In Geneva last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) submitted a review report on its activities around the issue of counterfeit medicines to the annual World Health Assembly (WHA). The report starts 25 years back and tells WHO’s story how to tackle and eradicate this major public health problem particular prominent in countries with no or weak regulatory authorities. The issue of combating counterfeit medicines is also included in WHO’s Medicines Strategy 2008-2013 and both documents are proving WHO’s continuous commitment to follow-up this threat to public health and patient safety.
06-May-2010
Cambodia: cutting tide of counterfeit medicines
Since teaming up with USP/PQM and boosting medicines testing capacity by opening a dozen medicines field test camps fitted with Minilabs between 2003 and 2005, health officials in Cambodia detected a high prevalence of counterfeit and substandard quality antimalarial medicines. Much more recently, phoney anthelminthics have been identified, too. The concurrent collection of ample evidence on dangerous trading in counterfeit medicines now enabled authorities to enforce the closer of 65% of illegal drug outlets in the country. All dealers in death shall be warned. For the missing balance to 100%, the collection of evidence is ongoing. Mainly detection and counting but also exchange of information and awareness raising paved the way for this success.
14-Apr-2010
Russia: Minilab training for TB clinics
TB clinics based in Moscow, Vladimir and Orel have recently been equipped with GPHF-Minilabs enabling doctors to verify rapidly the quality of antituberculosis medicines on site themselves and reject counterfeit drugs before administration. For this, staff from pharmacy departments and drug control authorities has been trained at the Central TB Clinic and WHO collaboration centre in Moscow last week. The pilot study on TB drug quality is implemented by the Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) programme run by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). GPHF Project Manager Richard Jähnke assisted in training. Clearing supplies from subpotent TB medicines will reduce the risks of multi-drug resistance proliferation.
06-Apr-2010
Mekong/Southeast Asia: Meeting on securing medicines quality
Health officials from regional countries and experts from international organisations were meeting in the capital of Lao PDR last week to take stock upon what has been achieved in confining counterfeit medicines proliferation in the greater Mekong region over the past five years. Key challenges and solutions in securing and monitoring medicines quality over the next years were discussed whereby the GPHF-Minilab was again able to attract much attention. The meeting was organised by the Promoting the Quality of Medicines programme (USP/PQM) in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Lao PDR. The other fifty participants were FDA representatives from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines or came from global donor agencies, for example, GFATM, USAID, BMGF , WHO and JICA.
