Kenyan consumers at highest risk of fake drugs

Business Daily reports that Kenyans have been listed among African consumers at highest risk of exposure to counterfeit drugs. In Kenya a National Quality Control Laboratories and Pharmacy and Poisons Board survey, conducted two years ago, found that nearly 30% of the drugs in the domestic market are counterfeit. The situation has reportedly since worsened, with the Kenyan Association of Pharmaceutical Industry estimating that some $130 million worth of counterfeit pharmaceutical products are sold in the market annually. This has repercussions for the market as well as for consumers: last year, Chinese company Holley-Cotec Pharmaceuticals was forced to recall 20,000 doses of its Duo-cotexin malaria drugs after it discovered that an illegal ring was manufacturing a version with low active ingredients and selling it at one fifth of the market price.