How To Identify Fake Drugs In Nigeria

To identified fake drug in Nigeria, you need to know what makes an original. It is similar to how to identify fake money. There are so many fake drugs in Nigeria. We need to identify them.

There are so many definition of fake drugs. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), counterfeit medicine is 'one which is deliberately and fradulently mislabelled with respect to identity and or source.'

The bottom line is any medicine or drug product which is different from what it is said to be is fake. In other words, any product that the manufacturer alters it's products information is fake. This is a deliberate and fraudulent way of pushing a substandard product to the public using its label to deceive. In some few cases, it can be by mistake as I have seen in a case involving my 'pikin.'
Read Also: How to verify NAFDAC registration number
Most fake drugs out there today either contain the stated drug in lower strength or a non inert substance. They may obtain fraudulent registration by producing good products during inspection and changing to the fake later on. They can still be producing them without registration. The most common among all the trick is using another company branded package on their fake products.

Risk Of Using Fake Drug

When the drug is of a lower strength: when people under dose, there is a possibility that they will not get well. If care is not taken, some disease may develop resistance to the drug due to the low dosing.
When the drug is an inert material: this is worst than the other. A dying person hoping to get relieve from the drug may suffer more harm.
To identify fake drugs and curb the menace, all hands must work together. Regulatory agencies like the Pharmacist Council Of Nigeria (P.C.N) and National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (N.A.F.D.A.C) are on top of the matter.  Their work alone is not enough to succeed. Pharmacist have a lot of role to play. That does not mean that individuals don't have anything to contribute. Let us see what each can do.

Fake drugs

Identify Fake Drugs By Pharmacist

Nigeria is yet to fully phase out open drug market and implement control drug supply. This leaves pharmacist the option of buying genuine drugs from genuine suppliers. That is the most important way of avoiding fake drugs.

It is difficult to tell when some suppliers decides to cut cost by buying from questionable sources. Even genuine suppliers do this sometimes. This puts the pharmacist to take time to do manual inspection.
Pharmacist comes in contact with drugs every time. Because of this, they will know the physical features of many drugs from afar. This is even more pronounce when pharmaceutical companies describe those features with pharmacist on how to differentiate their products from fake outside.

In some cases, pharmaceutical companies change their product packaging after some years. This help to push the fake products in the markets out making their producers to look for how to design the new design template which may take some time. A good example is the new package label of Emzor paracetamol marking their 30 years anniversary.
Fake packaging and label is more real to the genuine products these days than it was some years ago. This is because there have been the availability of sophisticated technology deployed by these fake companies to product packaging close to the genuine one. This is making it increasingly difficult for pharmacist to detect. However, no matter how much they try to, something must sell them out.

Package

1. Registration Number: every genuine product in Nigeria comes with a NAFDAC number. In addition, every product should have a batch number, manufacturer address, manufactured date and expiring date. Looking out for these can help tell when someone is trying to tamper the numbers. Every company have some codes they use in numbering their batches for easy identification by their staffs incase there is fake in circulation. The NAFDAC number should always be the same.
2. Print Quality: there is a font, font colour, font size etc that should always confirm to previous batch. Also, Matt and glossy are two different paper type available. Many companies use glossy because it is water resistant but difficult to write prescription on but matt is easily damage but easier to write on. When a company wants to switch from any of these designs, they will always inform the pharmacist as notice.
3. Drug Leaflet: the information of the package must tally with that of the drug Leaflet just as the case with genuine drugs. In a situation whereby one is different, that calls for suspicion.
4. Security Tamper: there are some security measures adopted by genuine products. This include security seal with trademark or logo design. It is very very difficult to see a technology that can successfully mimick a companies security seal without any mistake. However, when it is close to the genuine one it will be difficult to detect it.

How The Public Can Detect Fake Drugs

The public also have a role to play in curbing the problem of fake drugs in Nigeria. What is expected of them is not much. However, to help identify a fake company, pharmacists, medical doctor or other health care professional, you can read the post on the link below.
Read Also: How To Identify Fake Healthcare Professional
However, to identify fake drug, all it takes is interest. It is for all our good. First of all, always buy from a community pharmacy or hospital. Presently, NAFDAC is working on mobile authentication service (M.A.S) code. It is a service provided by sproxil (38353), pharmasecure (38351), UBQC (20966), Goldkeys (1393), etc.

It is all about providing a code along with genuine drugs covered with a silver panel. All the buyer need to do is to scratch off the silver panel to reveal the secret code, send the code as an short message service (SMS) to the number attach depending on the service provider and wait for an authentication message. Genuine products will carry some key information about the product confirming it is genuine from the manufacturer.
Due to financial  difficulty face by NAFDAC, the service was only deployed to fast moving drugs like antimalarial, antibiotic and some few other categories. They are working on how to implement it to all class of drugs.

However, most fake now come with this code. Just seeing the code alone is no guarantee it is original. Some code sent gave a no confirmatory result. That shows to what extent these people are going. So always verify because the seller is not in position to verify. Do this at the point of purchase.

Read Also: How to report a fake drug to NAFDAC
Some patients also take their time to look at physical attributes of previous products. I remember the day a patient pointed out the difference between two drugs. I was marvel. It shows that it is not only the job of a pharmacist. Your pharmacist may have an explanation for the new difference.
Lastly, good drugs don't come cheap. When the price is lower than the initial cost with a substantial amount, please be careful. Fake always come cheap. It comes cheap because they are not spending money promoting their products.
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