India rejects claims it exported fake medicine to Africa
- javascript:nicTemp();Indiahas denied claims that it has exported large quantities of counterfeit medication to Africa, after the Guardian published afront-page exposéon the phenomenon.“No fake medicines have been sent from India to the continent of Africa,” a spokesman for the ministry of external affairs in Delhi said.Thearticle cited experts and NGO reports as saying that up to a third of anti-malarialdrugsin Uganda and Tanzania might be fake or substandard, and the majority of them were manufactured inChinaand India. The drugs look identical to real ones, and can only be distinguished with lab testingAside frommalariadrugs, analysis of antibiotics and contraceptives has also identified fakes. “Some pills contain no active ingredients, some are partial strength and some the wrong formulation entirely,” said the article.The fake medications have led to deaths, prolonged illness and increased drug resistance in parts of east Africa, the article said.The Indian official said allegations of the nature of those mentioned in the Guardian had “surfaced previously” and “had been thoroughly investigated both in Africa and in India and found to be baseless”.As the Guardian report acknowledges, India has stepped up oversight on this subject [and] … continues to interact extensively with countries in Africa to provide quality medicines at affordable prices,” the spokesman said.”The government of India is committed to continue this co-operation in the strong belief that this is an ideal means of enhancing south-south co-operation and engagement.”Chinese officialsalso denied the chargesmade in the report.Counterfeit drugs are a long-running issue in China. According to official statements, Chinese police seized £113m of fake pharmaceuticals in July alone and £19m worth in November. Many ingredients were found to be harmful or toxic.The Indian health ministry launched a huge campaign last month to check the quality of medication manufactured across the country. India is home to more than 10,000 drug manufacturers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/02/india-rejects-fake-medicine-africa
Lear MoreWoman caught red-handed with fake credit card in mall
A 29-year-old woman attempted suicide after she was caught red-handed by the police while using afake credit card. Ramandeep Kaur was arrested from Reliance Mall in Oshiwara on Friday afternoon.While in Oshiwara police station, she pushed a woman constable and locked herself in the room, meantfor women constables. The woman tried to hang herself with her belt, but the cops broke open the doorin time. Ramandeep was admitted to Cooper Hospital where the doctors say she is fine and was justpretending to be unconscious. She bought two I-phones and some jewellery worth Rs 1,50,000 usinga fake credit card of HDFC Bank on Friday at Reliance Mall. As soon as she swiped the card, an officerfrom HDFC Bank informed the mall authorities that the credit card was fake. The mall kept her busy tillthe cops arrived by telling her that she was to get a New Year gift. The police said that she used fakecredit cards of various banks by loading new data on it. The cops have yet to extract the full informationfrom her. However, accused Ramandeep Kaur is not co-operating with the police officer during theinterrogation without providing much information to cops like from where she got so many creditcards and whom. However, it is known that on December 27, she went to a mall at Koparwadi, Thaneand bought jewellery worth Rs 90,000 using a credit card. The HDFC Bank had registered a case in thisconnection .Ramandeep Kaur was produced in a local court on Friday and remanded to police custodytill January 2 under Section 420 in (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) case and tillJanuary 4 in the attempted suicide case.
Lear MoreFake cough syrup manufacturing unit busted
Link to article when available or URL to publication: http://www.business-standard.com/generalnews/news/fake-cough-syrup-manufacturing-unit-busted/102608/
A unit which produced spurious cough syrup has been raided in Niwari area of the district and over500 bottles of the fake substance seized.According to Niwari SHO Shahnazar Ahmad, 550 bottles of thefake syrup were recovered along with colour, equipment and raw material used in the manufacture ofthe drug, during the raid that was carried out on Saturday night.The person allegedly behind the dodgyoperation, one Sachin, a resident of Delhi, has been apprehended by police.
Crooks use ‘defence’ tag to supply illicit liquor
Link to article when available or URL to publication: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/fake-liquor-brands-cheap-duplicate-labels-of-alcohol-seized/1/240319.html
Next time, if you see a liquor bottle bearing the stamp of ‘For Sale to Defence Personnel Only’, don’tblindly trust its quality, for it could be illicit liquor with fake labels. Excise officials have seized duplicatelabels of Indian Manufactured Foreign Liquor (IMFL) meant for defence personnel only. As many as 20boxes of liquor bottles were also recovered from the accused. It is suspected that such labels mighthave been used for selling Haryana-made liquor or any illicit alcohol in the national Capital. Exciseintelligence officials, for the last few months, have been cracking down harder on those who smuggleliquor from other places to the Capital. The smuggled liquor has not only caused revenue loss to theDelhi government but also raised alarm over the quality of alcohol served in the city. In the massivecrackdown, the officials have seized 82,589 bottles of IMFL and 2,656 bottles of foreign liquor this yeartill December 25. When compared to the last year’s data, the recovery in case of IMFL was more thanthree times this year while in case of foreign liquor it was four times. However, the seizure of fake labelsof IMFL meant for defence personnel on December 17 was an eye-opener. The officials also recovered20 boxes of liquor from the car of Anil Sharma. Sharma, who was reportedly staying in high securitySouth Avenue locality, was caught at Mother Teresa Crescent road in Chanakyapuri. After the seizure,the case was referred to the local police for investigation and an FIR was registered. A preliminaryinquiry revealed that the accused was coming from Haryana, and liquor was meant for delivery inthe Capital.A police official said that samples of liquor of all the brands had been sent for qualityexamination and the reports were awaited. A senior excise department official said it was alarming asthese labels could be used for selling illicit liquor. “How could one verify if he sells inferior quality ofliquor by pasting these labels (on bottles)? People can easily be cheated under the impression that theliquor is of good quality as it is for defence personnel,” said the official. Official sources said it is commonpractice to procure costly liquor from outside and serve it in parties in the Capital to evade taxes.
2.3L fake UIDs found in Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh has earned the dubious distinction of having issued the highest number of bogus Aadhaar numbers in the country. Of the 3.84 lakh fake numbers nationwide, 2.3 lakh were from the state.Unique Identification Authority of India officials have cancelled the fake numbers which were issued without taking biometrics such as fingerprints or iris scans.Sources said the fake numbers were generated by enrolment agencies who misused the “biometric-exemption clause”. While the clause is meant for rare cases where it’s difficult to take fingerprints or iris scans (like for those suffering from leprosy or are blind), some agencies enrolled those who did not fall under this category.Even under the exemption clause, the agencies are supposed to procure photographs and demographic information of those enrolled, but it seems the agencies provided fake information to earn extra money. The government pays around ‘50 for each Aadhaar number generated.“Majority of the bogus Aadhaar numbers were issued in Nellore, Ongole and some areas of Hy-derabad district… We have identified about six enrolment agencies involved in the fraud and have blacklisted them,” said M.V.S. Rami Reddy, deputy director-general, UIDAI, AP.Officials suspected foul play after nearly 50,000 cards were returned undelivered.Other states where fake Aadhaar numbers were issued were Maharashtra (39,000), Jharkhand (33,000), TN (19,000), Odisha (18,000), Delhi (14,000) and UP (8,000).
Lear MoreCounterfeit medicine proving deadly in Africa
Parts of Africa are seeing a dangerous rise in the amount of counterfeit medication – for diseases such as malaria – coming largely from Asia.According toThe Guardian, a combination of lax regulatory oversight in China and sub-par border security in Africa has led to a wave of at-best ineffective medicines making their way to malaria patients across the continent.”What we are told is this, if someone wants to counterfeit a drug, they just take the package to China and they can make it in thousands,” David Nahamya – chief drug inspector for the Ugandan national drug authority – told The Guardian. “You have seen how they make it there. They can copy anything.”A recent story by The Guardian showed that nearly a third of all malaria drugs making their ways to Uganda and Tanzania are illicit, which adds an extra layer of intrigue to China’s burgeoning trade market with African nations.The Atlanta Black Starpointed out that even China’s “CCTV” has made its way to the neighboring land mass, along with the newspaper The China Daily.For their part,China has refutedthe claims made by The Guardian, pointing out their contributions to Africa’s fight against malaria.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/340156
Lear MoreCounterfeit Cancer Medicines Multiply
The fake Avastin that surfaced in the U.S. this year grabbed headlines, but it was just one example of a growing problem in the pharmaceutical world: the rise of counterfeit cancer drugs.Fake versions of costly cancer medicines have appeared in increasing numbers in Asia and the Middle East in recent years and occasionally in Europe and the U.S. In 2011, cancer drugs ranked eighth among the top 10 types of drugs targeted by counterfeiters, according to the Pharmaceutical Security Institute, an industry-funded group; five years ago, they weren’t on the list at all.Authorities have seized some of the fakes in warehouses or shipping containers before they reached patients. But other counterfeits have turned up in pharmacies and hospitals, in one case injuring 80 patients in Shanghai.Counterfeiters are targeting cancer drugs because of the big profits to be made. While pills such as Viagra, long a favorite of the counterfeit trade, cost about $15 to $20 a tablet, a 400-milligram vial of the injectable drug Avastin costs about $2,400.Many of the fake cancer drugs seized in recent years were produced in China, where weak regulation and rapid industrialization have helped counterfeiting flourish. Law-enforcement authorities investigating the origins of the counterfeit Avastin found in the U.S. this year have considered China as a possible source.The fake Avastin traveled through Turkey and the U.K. before reaching the U.S. market. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration later warned dozens of doctors that they might have purchased the fakes from distributors owned by Canada Drugs, a Winnipeg Internet pharmacy company. The fakes contained starch, salt, cleaning solvents and other chemicals and none of the genuine drug’s active ingredient, bevacizumab, according toRoche HoldingAG,ROG.VX-0.92%Avastin’s manufacturer.The FDA declined to comment on the investigation of the matter, which it is leading, citing a policy against discussing continuing probes. Roche declined to comment on the possible origins of the counterfeits.Canada Drugs executives didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company’s employees previously acknowledged in interviews that they shipped the fake drug but said they didn’t know it was counterfeit.The fake Avastin found in the U.S. is just a small part of the global trafficking in counterfeit cancer drugs. A police raid in the Chinese city of Guangzhou last year netted 23 million tablets of a variety of counterfeit drugs, including bogus copies of the generic breast-cancer drug tamoxifen, according to Chinese law-enforcement documents.In March 2010, customs officers in Malta seized a cargo of counterfeit Gleevec, NovartisAG’sNOVN.VX-0.43%leukemia drug, according to Anthony Busuttil, director of enforcement for Maltese customs. He declined to comment on where the fakes came from or where they were being shipped.”There’s been an increase I’d say in the last five to six years” in the counterfeiting of cancer drugs, said Andrew Jackson, head of global security at Novartis. “The industry is obviously looking at this more rigorously than ever before….I suspect that the bad guys have clocked onto the huge profits that can be made.”The most serious case yet to hit Europe involved fakes of AstraZeneca AZN.LN-0.46% PLC’s breast-cancer drug Casodex, which reached U.K. pharmacies in 2007. The counterfeits were made in China, and sent through Hong Kong, Singapore and Belgium before reaching the U.K., where a little-known wholesaler called Consolidated Medical Supplies repackaged the tablets in French packaging and sold them to unsuspecting wholesalers and pharmacies, according to the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA.The head of Consolidated Medical Supplies, a Briton named Peter Gillespie, was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2011 for counterfeiting-related offenses including conspiracy to defraud.The U.K. tried to recall the bogus cancer drugs, along with fake schizophrenia and heart-disease medications also sold by Mr. Gillespie, but was unable to account for 700,000 doses that already had reached pharmacies and patients.A Chinese national named Kevin Xu was responsible for selling the counterfeits, according to the MHRA. Mr. Xu was later caught attempting to sell the same types of counterfeits to undercover federal agents in Houston and in 2009 was imprisoned in the U.S. for distributing counterfeit and misbranded pharmaceuticals.Simeon Wilson, global security director at AstraZeneca, said the company now has four staffers in China dedicated to hunting down counterfeit factories. The investigators assemble evidence of alleged wrongdoing and give it to Chinese police for enforcement action.”When we do it, and do it properly, the Chinese authorities have never turned us down,” he said.Still, in the southern manufacturing city of Guangzhou alone, where many of the Chinese-made fakes originate, there are “thousands and thousands” of counterfeiting companies operating, he said. Some making counterfeit medications are licensed as chemical manufacturers, which means they aren’t subject to regulation or inspections by China’s State Food and Drug Administration.The SFDA and China’s Ministry of Public Security didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article.Fake cancer drugs coming out of China have been found to contain everything from harmless placebo ingredients to potentially harmful material to some of the active ingredients in the genuine drugs, said Novartis’s Mr. Jackson. The counterfeit Casodex that reached the U.K. contained 50% to 80% of the active ingredient in the legitimate product, along with “unknown impurities,” the MHRA said.The regulator didn’t respond to questions about whether the fakes had harmed any patients.Chinese patients have been particularly vulnerable to the counterfeits. In 2010, 80 patients taking part in a clinical trial in Shanghai developed acute inflammation of the eye after doctors inadvertently gave them counterfeit Avastin, according to a 2011 report in the New England Journal of Medicine.According to the Shanghai government, 17 of the patients required surgery to fix the problem. The fake Avastin vials contained saline that was contaminated with bacterial endotoxin, the Shanghai government said.Last year, 11 people were convicted of making and selling the counterfeits, including Wu Guosong, a counterfeiter from Heilongjiang province identified by authorities as the group’s ringleader. He got a prison sentence of two years and 10 months.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323320404578211492452353034.html
Lear MoreRegion rolls out sim card switch-off
The crackdown on fake phones and unregistered subscribers in East Africa is expected to gain fresh impetus in 2013 as countries move to stop crime and stem the rising imports of counterfeit devices.Kenya is set to switch off users of unregistered sim cards this week in a move aimed at stopping criminals who use mobile phones to threaten and extort money from the public.The Communications Commission of Kenya has given mobile subscribers using unregistered sim cards up to December 31 to register or be switched off from all four local networks. Other countries in the East African Community are following in Kenya’s footsteps and have independently launched similar projects with the aim of beefing up security in the use of mobile phones.In Uganda, the communications regulator has set March 1, 2013, as the new deadline for mobile users to register their sim cards and July 1 for the switch off of counterfeit phones. Tanzania also plans to rid the country of counterfeit phones.The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority says it is planning to run a campaign in 2013 to educate the public on the need to have genuine phones, before disconnecting users.The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (Rura) says it also has plans to switch off fake phones.The regulator says the counterfeit phones switch off is an initiative that was agreed upon within the East African Communications Organisation.On their own, mobile operators have rolled out various campaigns over the past few months seeking to sensitise their customers on the need to have their lines registered.“We are acting on the regulator’s instructions because we also understand the motive behind the move. We hope to have all our subscribers registered by the deadline but we will unfortunately switch off all sim cards that will not have been registered,” said yuMobile chief executive Madhur Taneja.Safaricom and Telkom Orange have also confirmed that they will comply with the regulator’s instructions.
Lear MoreThree more held in fake memory card racket
Three more persons were arrested by the Kurla Government Railway Police (GRP) in connection with the fake phone memory card racket. The trio, all dealers of fake cards, were picked up from Thane station on Thursday. The accused used a mixture of molten tar and bottle caps and wrapped it in plastic to resemble memory cards, peddling them on foot overbridges and outside railway stations.”We have arrested Shahbaz Khan, 19, Imran Khan 19 and Mohammed Afsar Ali Khan, 19 on Thursday. Around 1000 fake memory cards and 10 fake pen drives were seized from them. A railway court has remanded the trio to police custody till December 29,” a GRP official said. The total number of arrests in the case has now gone up to six the GRP had arrested three persons on Tuesday and seized 600 memory cards from them.During investigation, the police found that original memory cards were sold in the market for Rs 400, while the accused peddled the fake memory cards for as low as Rs 20, attracting a large number of customers. The cost involved in manufacturing fake memory cards is only Rs 3.50. The accused would operate at one location only for an hour.
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China rejects claims of producing fake medicine for Africa
China has denied allegations that it has been exporting huge amounts of counterfeit medication to Africa, threatening public health in east Africa, five days after the Guardian published a front page exposé on the phenomenon.The official Xinhua news agency said a foreign ministry spokeswoman rejected the accusation, but “called on foreign traders to procure medicines from legitimate companies through standardised channels”.”Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily press briefing that the accusations are unfounded, noting that co-operation between the Chinese government and African countries has played an important role in improving the healthcare environment for people in Africa,” Xinhua reported on Thursday night.The Guardian article cited experts and NGO reports as saying that up to a third of anti-malarial drugs in Uganda and Tanzania may be fake or substandard, and that the majority of them are manufactured in China and India. The drugs look identical to real ones, and can only be distinguished with lab testing. Aside from malaria drugs, analysis of antibiotics and contraceptives have also turned up fakes. “Some pills contain no active ingredients, some are partial strength and some the wrong formulation entirely,” said the article.The fake medications have led to deaths, prolonged illness and increased drug resistance in areas of east Africa, the article said.A Chinese foreign ministry official refused to specify which parts of the Guardian article the ministry disputed. She said that the repudiations were aimed at the question of counterfeit drug exports, not the article specifically. Counterfeit drugs are an endemic and long-running issue in China. According to official statements, Chinese police seized £113m worth of fake pharmaceuticals this July alone and £19m worth last November. Many ingredients were found to be harmful or toxic.According to Xinhua, the foreign ministry spokeswoman “stressed that China always attaches great importance to drug safety and resolutely cracks down on the manufacture and sale of counterfeit drugs” and defended Beijing’s record of providing healthcare aid to African countries.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/28/china-rejects-fake-medicine-africa
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