Held at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC, the 2024 symposium welcomed ~ 103 attendees who shared insights and assessed progress. It charted a collective course of action to combat the threat posed by substandard and falsified drugs. Through enlightening keynote addresses and interactive discussions, the event emphasized the importance of a multifaceted public health response through prevention, detection, and response strategies rooted in digital and physical surveillance, capacity building, regulatory enforcement, and education for both healthcare professionals and consumers.
The report highlights the burden of SF drugs in lower-and middle-income countries (LMICs), and its growing threat in high-income countries like the United States – for instance, an unauthorized network of drug distributors and suppliers sold over $250 million worth of counterfeit versions of HIV treatments in the U.S., endangering vulnerable patients. Online pharmacies are worsening this crisis as 95% of online pharmacies are unlicensed and 50-90% of medicines sold online are SFs. Globally, 353.3 billions is lost in economic output annually due to SF drugs.
Despite the increasing prevalence, knowledge of SF drugs among healthcare providers remains low – a recent survey revealed that 37% of healthcare providers (HCPs) are unaware of the extent of SF drugs.
The report emphasizes the following needed actions to curb the growing threat of SFs:
- Building the capacity of frontline actors with targeted education into pharmacy school curricula, promoting experiential learning strategies, and leveraging digital tools.
- Strengthening regulatory oversight, underscoring the importance of harmonizing prevention, detection, and response mechanisms and integration of regulatory efforts with law enforcement.
- Empowering consumers through direct engagement by healthcare providers, peer-to-peer networks, and digital and social media campaigns.
- Elevating cross-sector and cross-border partnerships that prioritize shared ownership.
- Supporting digital interventions that promote health, raise awareness about SF drugs, and make supply chains more secure.
Fight the Fakes Alliance is mentioned as a key platform supporting awareness and stakeholder engagement.
Read the full report: https://fakemedicinenomore.org/
