Accra — The President of West African Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers Association, Mazi Sam Ohuanbuwa has said that there is a high prevalence of counterfeit drugs in Sub-Saharan Africa which ranges between 15% and 25% of all medicines.

Speaking at the first West African Forum on Access to Quality Medicines, Mr. Ohuanbuwa said the incidents of drug counterfeiting come on the back of several studies which have found frightening levels of substandard medication in the national drug supply chain in Nigeria and even in Ghana.

Only in 2008, a research conducted at KNUST by Ofori Kwakye, Asantewaa and Gaye, revealed that 82% of sample antesonate sold in pharmacies in Kumasi were far below standards of European guidelines.

Mr. Ohuanbuwa said the situation is intolerable for patients and consumers of health products and should be unacceptable to regulators, policy makers, and concerned civil society actors, adding that it threatens the growth of pharmaceutical industries. "The proliferation of counterfeit medicines must clearly be stopped."

Drug counterfeiting in Sub-Saharan Africa is believed to occur in several ways some of which include black marketing, mislabeling, fraudulent packaging, contents tampering, unlicensed repackaging, unauthorized parallel trading and the sale of dummies masquerading as drugs.

Ohuanbuwa said it is important that stakeholders in the sub-region strive to complement the effort of their governments to promote healthy business in pharmaceutical trade and production in West Africa.

The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, Dr. Alex Dodoo said there was a mass withdrawal of widely prescribed antimalaria drugs from several pharmacies and licensed shops in Kumasi a few months ago. This, he said, was enough evidence that drug counterfeiting is real in the country and that Ghana cannot remain complacent about the health and safety of its citizens.

He however said that it was not all substandard medicines that came from counterfeit sources but that poor handling of legitimate medicine could also corrupt them.