The third annual meeting of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Medical Products Anti-counterfeiting Task Force (IMPACT) ran in Hammamet, Tunisia. Aim: to develop international collaboration between WHO member states, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, law enforcement agencies such as INTERPOL, health professional groups and pharmaceutical companies.
The meeting aimed to raise awareness of the dangers of counterfeit medical products and to curb their manufacture and distribution. Opening the conference, Tunisian Minister of Health Mondher Znaidi underlined the challenge facing the meeting when he said that “counterfeiting of medical products is a reality in most countries of the world. It affects more those
countries that are poorer and have weaker regulatory systems. Counterfeiters are becoming more and more organized and sophisticated. This calls for strengthening our legal, technical, law enforcement and communication tools.”
The three-day meeting (3-5 December) brought together 100 representatives from almost 40 countries. The focus was on:
harmonizing a common international consensus on the definition of counterfeit medical products
defining regulatory infrastructures with a guideline on Internet purchasing
implementing legislation in specific countries
maximizing collective benefits for the IMPACT Programme from the current secondment of an INTERPOL Crime Intelligence Officer to WHO
the role of international law enforcement in fighting counterfeit medicines
With IMPACT Executive Secretary Valerio Reggi emphasizing that “the key issue is to ensure co-ordination between all stakeholders committed to the fight against counterfeit medical products,” representatives will review recent operations in South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa by WHO and INTERPOL as examples of how national authorities can collaborate and achieve results.
In November, police across Southeast Asia conducted multiple arrests and seized fake drugs worth millions of dollars in Operation Storm, supported by INTERPOL, the WHO and the World Customs Organization (WCO), under the framework of IMPACT. The operation targeted individuals and groups involved in manufacturing and distributing counterfeit medicines identified as posing a significant public health risk – anti malaria, anti tuberculosis, anti-HIV and antibiotics.
Previously, Operation Mamba in September and October saw the first combined INTERPOL- WHO operation, targeting counterfeit pharmaceutical products in Tanzania and Uganda, resulting in the closure in both countries of illicit businesses and markets, pharmacies and warehouses, and in the seizure and confiscation of over 100 types of products.
It is estimated that in Sub-Saharan Africa over one million people, mostly children aged under five, die each year from malaria. Fake anti-malarial drugs are believed to be a contributory factor in most of these tragedies.
INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said that “no one country alone can fully succeed in fighting against the transnational organized production and distribution of counterfeit drugs. We must exchange intelligence, particularly on the source, transit and destination countries, share our respective roles and responsibilities, and extend training to law enforcement to ensure appropriate investigative action is taken to prevent and eliminate fake drugs.”
A part of any operation against counterfeit medicines is the provision of training to customs, drug regulatory agency and police officials to assist them in counterfeit identification and sample handling techniques.
