Source: Nigeria Communications Week
Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has alerted health care providers and other members of the public on the circulation of fake Coartem tablets.
Coartem contains 2 active substances, artemether and lumefantrine, which work together to kill the parasites that cause malaria.
Coartem is known as an artemisinin-based combination therapy.
Dr. Abubakar Jimoh, NAFDAC’s director of Special Duties, said that the manufacturer on the fake Coartem tablet is written as NOVRTS instead of Novartis.
Jimoh urged members of the public, especially health care providers to be vigilant and report distribution and sale of fake Coartem tablets to the nearest NAFDAC office for regulatory action.
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It will be recalled that many drug counterfeiters target fast moving medications including antimalarial, ante-hypertensive and antibiotics drugs.
The scarcity of any of these medicines in the normal supply chain therefore creates opportunity whereby unscrupulous persons fill the gap by making the substandard or fake drugs available in the supply chain.