Counterfeit medicines are a growing threat to public health in Peru, according to a recent study published in the Pan American Journal of Public Health¹. Since 2005, the prevalence of counterfeit medicines has increased annually by an average of 45 per cent.

Counterfeiting of life-saving drugs signifies a serious public health threat. Counterfeit medicines include products with:

• Toxic ingredients.  These counterfeit products are the most harmful to patients.
• Insufficient or too much active ingredients.  These fakes either aren’t strong enough to cure the illness or can lead to accidental overdosing. These products also promote drug resistance.
• Fake packaging, but correct ingredients. While not directly harmful to patients, these counterfeit products make it difficult to properly track adverse events and are unreliable at best.
• No active ingredients, which provide no benefit to patients.

Nearly a quarter (22.4%) of the counterfeit medicines found by Peru’s National Quality Control Center did not contain any active ingredient. The manufacturers of these fake pills threaten the health of patients and place a further burden on the country’s health system.

References:

¹ http://journal.paho.org/#abs1452

WHO Definition of Counterfeit Medicine

A counterfeit medicine is “a medicine, which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and/or source. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products and counterfeit products may include products with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient active ingredients or with fake packaging.”

http://www.who.int/impact/impact_q-a/en/index.html

	Country Overview:  Peru
	Total Population	27,589,000
	Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006)	300
	Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006)	4.3
	Gross national income per capita (PPP int. $)	6,490
	Life expectancy at birth m/f (years)	71/75
	Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003)	60/62
	Probability of dying under 5 (per 1000 live births)	25

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