First of all, a big thank you to everyone for your continuous and courageous support in the fight against fake medicines! Your support means a lot to us as 2018 has been a truly eventful and successful year: with our very 1st Fight the Fakes week, pick up in The Lancet no less, our “localisation” project in Ghana, and more and more people joining our campaign to inform and raise awareness about #fakemeds. Read on to remember all the great things we have done together…
This year we saw several highlights, for example the very successful panel discussion about the global impacts of substandard and falsified medicines in London hosted by UCL School of Pharmacy and the Commonwealth Pharmacist Association (CPA) – you can read a recap of the event in the Lancet and an interview with the photo contest winner, Miriam Haendler. In September, Fight the Fakes held its first African Stakeholder Roundtable in Accra, Ghana, with various partners actively participating. Finally, at the beginning of December the first Fight the Fakes Week took place with great activity on social media and various lectures and panel discussions which were organized by our partners UCL Fight the Fakes and the World Heart Foundation.
We were also encouraged by some personal stories about the impact falsified medicines can have. We profiled three courageous mothers who are fighting falsified medicines following their own devastating experiences with fakemeds.
But even more happened these past 12 months:
Two more partners also joined our fight against fake meds: the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (IAPO) and the European Medicines Verification Organisation (EMVO). Once again, a big welcome. We are very happy to have you in the Fight the Fakes campaign!
Last but not least, we also supported our partners in various events throughout the year, for example World Heart Day in September and the World Antibiotic Awareness Week in November.
To recap the year, just visit our Updates section and refresh your memories of all the great achievements of 2018.
We look forward to welcoming you all back in 2019 with great motivation to continue the fight against #fakemeds! We will be sharing with you our proposal for a smashing 2019.
But for now, we are wishing everyone happy and relaxing holidays!
Your Fight the Fakes Team
