Scientists trace fake anti-malaria pills to dealer in southern China
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
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Scientists and police have struck back against the global menace of counterfeit drugs in a unique collaboration that has led to the seizure of hundreds of thousands of fake anti-malaria tablets and the arrest of a key dealer in southern China.
In a stunning piece of forensic detective work, scientists who analysed pollen grains and minerals in the fake drugs were able to trace their origin to the Yunnan province of southern China, where almost a half of all blisterpacks of the antimalarial drug artesunate are thought to be fake.
The arrested dealer is alleged to have traded 240,000 blisterpacks of fake artesunate, enough to "treat" almost 250,000 adults with a medicine that has no effect on the potentially fatal disease. Chinese authorities seized 24,000 of the blisterpacks but the remainder are thought to have been sold on the border between Yunnan province and Burma.
Details of the collaboration, called Operation Jupiter, are published for the first time today in the online journal of the Public Library of Science, PLoS Medicine. The investigation was co-ordinated by Interpol with the World Health Organisation and scientists from the Wellcome Trust SE Asian Tropical Research Programme at the University of Oxford.
The WHO estimates that fake drugs account for more than 10 per cent of the global medicines market but pharmaceutical companies are often reluctant to admit they have fallen victim to the counterfeiters for fear of damaging sales of the genuine product.
Paul Newton, who led the research, said fake anti-malarial drugs were an increasing problem, especially in South-east Asia and Africa. Malaria is widespread in Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and up to half of all artesunate tablets in these regions are thought to be counterfeit.
Dr Newton said: "Artesunate... is vital for malaria treatment and is one of the most effective weapons we have against this terrible scourge. Those who make fake anti-malarials have killed with impunity, directly through the criminal production of a medicine lacking active ingredients and by encouraging drug resistance to spread. If malaria becomes resistant to artesunate the effect on public health in the tropics will be catastrophic."
Fear about growing drug resistance have been raised because some fake drugs seized in Operation Jupiter turned out to include dangerously small quantities of artesunate, probably in an attempt to foil screening tests implemented as quality checks. The doses included were too low to tackle the disease but high enough to contribute to the malaria parasites acquiring resistance to the drugs.
Most of the seized drugs contained no artesunate or a wide range of potentially toxic ingredients. The scientists who analysed the drugs used a sophisticated technique called forensic palynology to study pollen contamination in the samples, from which they were able to track the likely location of manufacture.
The pollen evidence suggested at least some of the counterfeit artesunate came from southern China and this was backed up by examination of the mineral, calcite, also found in some samples. Scientists from five laboratories were involved in analysing the fake drugs and their packaging.
Dr Newton said the success of Operation Jupiter proved it was possible to help countries facing a major threat from counterfeit drugs. "Criminal investigations and legal action are important in disrupting and inhibiting the trade in fake medicines, but to be effective these will require financial support and resources," he said. "Forensic tools may make it easier to identify the fake drugs and allow over-stretched police forces to focus on objective leads, greatly increasing the risks to counterfeiters of being caught."
"But there are very few laboratories with the resources to perform detailed forensic chemistry or pollen analysis of fakes, particularly in the countries where they are most needed."
