Be careful, your healing medicine may kill you

If you think that buying and taking the medicine prescribed to you by the doctor will improve your health condition, you are wrong. Health officials announced, on Tuesday evening, that one out of every 10 drugs sold in developing countries is counterfeit, or less than the required quality specifications, which It leads to the deaths of tens of thousands, including many African children who are ineffectively treated for pneumonia and malaria.
In a major review of the problem, the World Health Organization said counterfeit medicines represented a growing threat, as the growth of the pharmaceutical trade, including online sales of medicine, opened the door to some toxic products.

Some pharmacists in Africa, for example, say they have to buy from the cheapest, but not necessarily the highest quality, suppliers to be able to compete with illegal dealers.
It can lead toCounterfeit medicines in incorrect doses and incorrect or ineffective ingredients may exacerbate the problem.

It is difficult to quantify the exact extent of the problem, but a WHO analysis of 100 studies from 2007 to 2016 covering more than 48 samples showed that 10.5% of medicines in low- and middle-income countries were either counterfeit or substandard.

The volume of drug sales in these countries is estimated at $300 billion annually, and thus the trade in counterfeit medicines is worth $30 billion.
A team from the University of Edinburgh commissioned by the World Health Organization to study the impact of counterfeit medicines said the human toll was huge.
They said that about 72 deaths due to pneumonia in children can be attributed to the use of low-effective antibiotics, and that deaths increase to 169 if the drugs are without any effectiveness.

And low-potency drugs increase the risk of antibiotic resistance, threatening to undermine the effectiveness of life-saving drugs in the future.