Essay Examines Efforts To Combat Substandard, Counterfeit Medicine In Rwanda

In an essay in PLOS Medicine, Agnes Binagwaho of the Ministry of Health of Rwanda and colleagues examine the issue of substandard and falsified medicines, highlighting successful efforts to combat the issue in Rwanda. “Substandard and falsified medicines are major global health challenges that cause unnecessary morbidity and mortality around the world and threaten to undermine recent progress against infectious diseases by facilitating the emergence of drug resistance,” the authors write in a summary. “In a recent study, Rwanda had the lowest prevalence of poor quality tuberculosis drugs among African countries in the sample,” the authors note, concluding, “Drawing on our experiences in Rwanda scaling up pharmacovigilance for malaria and tuberculosis, we call for a global treaty and leadership by the [WHO] to address manufacturing and trade in substandard and falsified medicines” (7/2).

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