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Investment is key to tackling the ongoing threat of fake medicines

Blogs General

In a guest blog, Prof Paul Newton of the Nuffield Department of Medicine, and Head of the Medicine Quality Group at the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO), explains the history of falsified medicines and highlights what needs to be done to avert a problem that threatens us all.

Ampoules © alexkich - Shutterstock

From Vienna to the Democratic Republic of Congo, fake medicines have threatened citizens across the board – and borders – in wartime as well as peacetime.

Falsified medicines have sadly probably been with us since the first manufacture of medicines and their producers may be the world’s third oldest profession after prostitution and spying. Last year falsified ampicillin was discovered circulating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in bottles of 1,000 capsules and containing no detectable ampicillin.

Read more (Oxford Science blog)