Kenya Observation: Chinese medicine saves tens of millions of African malaria patients

Not long ago, the British Guardian published an article on the front page stating that in Africa, such as Tanzania and Uganda, the drug market for malaria and other diseases is flooded with about one-third of fake products, most of which come from China and Uganda. India. In subsequent articles, the author directly pointed to China, believing that China has a tradition of producing fakes, and continued to criticize China for threatening the lives of thousands of Africans.
     However, the actual situation is exactly the opposite of the reported conclusion. It is the "artemisinin" medicines discovered in China that effectively replaced the "quinine" drugs with huge side effects produced in the West and saved millions of African patients infected with deadly malaria.
     Chinese experts developed anti-malarial drugs containing "artemisinin" in the 1960s and 1970s. After years of improvement, they were recommended by the World Health Organization for anti-malaria in the early 21st century. Although in the global public market share, the share of antimalarial drugs produced by Chinese companies is less than 20%. In the private market, it has an advantage that other countries' medicines can't match, that is, good quality and low price.
     "My child got malaria. After only three days of malaria medicine made in China, he recovered completely. The total cost was less than 100 shillings (approximately 1.15 US dollars, 7.2 yuan)." said Priti from Kenya. , She also said that if you go to a public hospital, it will cost less.
     Western reports on this matter are based only on "huge suspicion" and the analysis of individual experts. This is because there is no authoritative international organization or relevant department of the African government that can obtain real and effective data to analyze counterfeit drug cases. In other words, in the cases of counterfeit medicines investigated and handled by African countries every year, there is no data to prove who produced these counterfeit medicines.
     Although Chinese medicines are gradually pouring into the African market, a huge share of the local medicine market is still occupied by Indians, and India is also a world-renowned producer of finished medicines.
     "I have seen fake medicines that counterfeit China's Kotaixing, but I don't know if they are made in China, but I did come into contact with fake medicines from India and Nigeria," said Saigon-Oruba, a drug dealer from Nigeria. "Many fake pills are actually made of salt and flour!"
     In the case of the proliferation of counterfeit drugs, people have also overlooked an important factor, that is, the desire to maximize the commercial interests of local African businessmen. Many businessmen from Africa go to pharmaceutical factories in various countries with packaging of genuine medicines, demanding to reduce the cost of purchases at the cost of reducing the ingredients of the medicines. What's more, they directly open black workshops to produce counterfeit medicines without medicine.
     "I don't know what to say when I meet such a distributor and a counterfeit drug maker." Oruba said.
     Faced with the huge threat of counterfeit drugs, African people who have jumped from the "wired network era" to the "wireless communication era" can actually easily use their mobile phones to participate in the fight against counterfeit drugs.
     "If we have a sound serial number network system, African people can easily enter the serial number code behind the drug packaging to know whether the drug purchased is produced by a regular manufacturer," said Bright Simon, a company from Ghana is dedicated to advancing the CEO of the serial number verification industry company.
     "However, the problem now is that most of the medicines in Africa come from Asia, not to mention the coordination and unification between several major Asian countries, such as India and China, and the verification of serial numbers even among different companies in a single market It has different needs and cannot be widely implemented," he said.