Zambia denies reports of fake drug consumption within country

LUSAKA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Zambia on Friday denied being among countries in Africa buying expired drugs, its medicines regulatory body.

Last week, media reports indicated that the southern African nation was among countries named in a World Health Organization (WHO) report as a consumer of fake medicine.

The media reports, quoting a WHO Global Surveillance and Monitoring System for Sub-standard and Falsified Medical Products report, said that 10 percent of the low and middle-income countries consumed drugs that were below standard, falsely labeled or simply fake and that the affected countries were collectively spending huge sums of money on the fake drugs.

But the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority has dispelled the reports, saying the country does not buy expired drugs because of stringent measures that have been put in place.

Bernice Mwale, director-general of the medicines' authority said the media reports were false as they misrepresented the contents of the report and that there was nowhere in the report where Zambia has been named.

She told reporters during a press briefing that the media should be careful with what they report because such reports had the potential to cause alarm and panic among members of the general public.

The agency, she said, has put in place a stringent system of sampling and testing of drugs coming into the country before they are dispensed to health facilities in both the public and private sectors.

She said there were no fake medicines in the country because of stringent measures put in place to ensure the efficacy and quality of the medicines.

According to her, as a member of the WHO Global Surveillance and Monitoring System, a platform for countries to report substandard and falsified medicines that are detected in their local surveillance systems, Zambia and other member countries were expected to report the substandard and falsified medicines if they were found on their markets. Enditem