Healthcare | Saturday 18 April, 2015 12:47 pm |

A GCC health official has called for strict penalties on countries and companies found engaged in exporting or importing adulterated and counterfeit drugs in order to curb the spread of such drugs in Arab countries.
Director General of the Executive Office of the Council of Ministers of Health of the Gulf Cooperation Council Tewfiq Ahmed Khoja said 35 percent of medicines circulated in some Arab countries are fake — in other words, one in every three drugs is counterfeit.

Khoja, who was addressing the 2nd Arab conference on foods and drugs in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, attributed the rising rate of adulterated drugs to poor monitoring by regulatory bodies which are supposed to protect the market from such drugs.
Khoja quoted data released by the World Health Organization to say that losses arising from fraudulent pharmaceutical products were estimated at $60 billion in 2008. This jumped to nearly $75 billion in 2010.

Khoja also said that successful Arab experiences in the establishment of food and drug authorities should be given media publicity. Discussions should also focus on problems related to Arab drug pricing, rules and procedures relating to the manufacture and marketing of food and medicine, and the adoption of an Arab authority for food and drugs dealing with all issues concerned with the health of Arab citizens.