Nairobi — A major security initiative aimed at curbing the smuggling of Aids drugs back into Europe has been launched, with British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, changing the colours, embossing and packaging of ARVs meant for the African market.

The multimillion dollar exercise targets syndicates, which are illegally re-shipping Aids drugs greatly subsidised for patients in countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and other African countries back to Europe, placing thousands of HIV-positive people at risk.

According to Dr William Mwatu, GSK-East Africa's medical and regulatory affairs director, the new anti-smuggling move by the drug firm will see all ARVs sold to developing countries being coloured red, which will differentiate them from those sold in Europe, which will remain white. Individual tablets will also bear different embossments from those sold in developed countries. The medicines will in addition be shipped to their destinations in new packets with bar codes to ensure better tracking.

Dr Mwatu said the rebranding began in February and that the company will bear the cost. The bar code will enable the drug maker to identify wholesalers on the continent who sell for a profit, drugs manufactured for humanitarian use, as well as suppliers in Europe who profit from the illegal imports.

Approval for the changes has already been obtained in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.

"We have already registered the changes with the relevant authorities across East Africa, and the new-look medicines will be supplied to non-profit organisations as well as governments from this month," Dr Mwatu told The EastAfrican last week. "The new red colour does not affect the effectiveness of the medicines and is only meant to distinguish them from those sold in Europe."

Recently the London Times, reported that GSK's investigators working with security agencies from several European nations, had uncovered a syndicate based in Antwerp, Netherlands, through which more than 43,500 packets of Aids drugs had been shipped back to Europe in a single year.

The newspaper said the ring had sourced the drugs cheaply from five African countries and re-exported them via Brussels and Paris to several European markets, where they were sold at full price. The Dutch wholesaler involved in the smuggling is said to have pocketed an estimated $18 million from the operation.

GSK are the makers of the anti-retrovirals Epivir, Retrovir, Combivir (a combination of the first two), and Ziagen and Trizivir ( a combination of the three).

As part of a United Nations-supported initiative, the drugs are supplied "at cost" to developing countries. Currently, a month's supply of Combivir costs about $610 in Britain, but goes for just about $20 in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, leaving a $540 profit margin for smugglers.

Due to these price concessions, GSK's not-for-profit Aids programme, which last year shipped 67 million Aids tablets to Africa, is a major target of the smugglers, who also target other drug makers such as Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), the American manufacturer of the ARVs Crixivan and Stocrin.

Last week, Dr Mwatu said that GSK was already investigating several cases of smuggling of ARVs back to Europe from the region, and said that court action will be taken locally once there is sufficient evidence.

He said the first drugs to be affected by GSK's changes are Epivir and Combivir, which are widely used in the region. The others will follow in the next few months. A consignment of the new-look ARVs has already been delivered to health providers in Ethiopia.

"We hope the new changes, especially in colour, will stop the illegal flow back to Europe of the lifesaving medicines, which we have found to be a real and growing problem," said Dr Mwatu. "When the relevant authorities see people retailing red Epivir in Europe, for example, they will instantaneously know that it is smuggled and take the necessary action."

GSK's move to curb smuggling of ARVs back to Europe comes at a time when East Africa and other Aids hit regions are seeking to meet a World Health Organisation goal of treating three million HIV-positive people with the drugs by the end of the year.

As part of that drive, Kenya has undertaken to raise the number of Aids patients on the medicines from the current 25,000 to 100,000 by December, while Uganda expects to put half of all the people who need them on the drugs. Tanzania hopes to raise its figures to at least 80,000.

Currently, according to UNAids, more than 500,000 people across the region need antiretroviral therapy.

Rwanda says that it will treat more than 100,000 people with the life-saving medicines by the end of the year, taking the total number of people on treatments in the region to more than 400,000.

The high number of drugs that are expected to flow into the region and the rest of the continent, was probably what prompted GSK to make changes in the colour scheme of ARVs, since they could significantly distort its market in developed countries if allowed to flow back irregularly, according to sources in the pharmaceutical industry.

Other than Europe, the latest market to emerge for illegal ARVs from Africa is now the Middle East region, where the stigma and discrimination associated with Aids has driven many patients underground and created a lucrative demand.

Other regions include Eastern Europe, where living standards are relatively low compared with the rest of Europe, and which is one of the regions where UNAids says the prevalence of Aids is rising fastest.