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Global AIDS fight threatened by bogus drugs

    JOHANNESBURG

    UN organisations have once again expressed concern that bogus medicines could undermine their drive to get HIV/AIDS treatment to millions of people in the developing world.

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned earlier this month that counterfeiting, mostly of antibiotics and drugs to treat tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS, was widespread and "often leads to death".

    Plans to get antiretroviral treatment to three million people in the developing world by the end of 2005 are currently being drawn up by the organisation.

    However, Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has warned that mass rollout of treatment could bring with it problems of substandard drugs, which could grow as more drugs were delivered to Africa and other AIDS hot spots.

    In a recent interview with Reuters, Feachem said: "One of the things we are going to see, very surely, is a lot of bogus medicine coming in the slipstream ... the market will be flooded with these products, be sure."

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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