Trafficked and fake medical products are killing almost 500 000 sub-Saharan Africans every year, and urgent action is needed to stem the flow, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said in its latest threat assessment report.
The report, Trafficking in Medical Products in the Sahel, shows that lack of access to healthcare and medicines has been fuelling a host of opportunists aimed at filling the gaps (the 10 countries comprising the Sahel region are Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Sudan).
Sadly, this supply and an imbalance in demand have triggered deadly results.
In sub-Saharan Africa, as many as 267 000 deaths per year are linked to falsified and sub-standard anti-malarial medicines, the transnational organised crime threat assessment found. Additionally, up to 169 271 are linked to falsified and sub-standard antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia in children, reports UN News.
Trafficking these products is also taking a direct economic toll on affected countries. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that caring for people who have used falsified or sub-standard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs between $12m and $44.7m every year.
International operations saw more than 605 tons of medical products seized in West Africa between January 2017 and December 2021. Typically, these products travel through mainstream international trade channels, mainly by sea.
Diverted from the legal supply chain, the products often come from major exporting countries to the Sahel region, including China, Belgium, France and India. Others are manufactured in neighbouring states.
Once in West Africa, smugglers move medical products by bus, cars and trucks to the Sahel, following existing trafficking routes, to avoid border controls.
Myriad traffickers
Terrorist groups and non-state armed groups are commonly associated with medical product trafficking in the Sahel, but their involvement is limited. These groups levy “taxes” in areas they control or they abuse the drugs themselves.
News reports on drug use for non-medicinal purposes among terrorist groups have documented an al-Qaida affiliate in Côte d’Ivoire and former Boko Haram recruits in Nigeria using or attempting to buy the opioid-like clonazepam (rivotril) since at least 2016.
At the same time, the UNODC report states that investigations have uncovered a variety of actors involved in the illicit medical product trade. Traffickers include pharmaceutical company employees, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors.
Tackling trafficking
In 2009, the African Union established the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation initiative to improve access to safe, affordable medicine, part of its Framework on Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa. in additiona, all Sahel countries but Mauritania have ratified a treaty for the establishment of the African Medicines Agency.
The UNODC report recommended introducing or revising legislation to prevent all related offences, such as smuggling, money-laundering and corruption.
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