September 24, 2024, Location – Fight the Fakes Alliance is excited to announce and welcome the Université la Source Conakry as the newest member of the Alliance. Given that one-fifth of medicines in Africa are potentially substandard or falsified (SFs), and that SFs in sub-Saharan kill almost 500,000 people each year, this partnership is monumental in building and expanding the reach of Fight the Fakes campaign in a critical region.
Université la Source Conakry’s commitment to campaigning about substandard and falsified medicines makes the University the perfect new addition to the Fight the Fakes Alliance. The Université la Source Conakry recognizes the importance of fighting against SFs and has been committed to the fight against SFs for several years. Efforts from the University, including raising visibility of the issue at congresses and other events across the continent where medicines are analyzed, against the rise of SFs emphasizes the University’s commitment to the cause.
The involvement of the University faculty and students in progressing the fight against SFs creates a special opportunity for community impact. Every year, Université la Source Conakry conducts a campaign about SFs, where students and University employees visit villages and other cities outside of Conakry to teach health workers and the local population including schools for children about the dangers of SFs. In 2023, students from Universite la Source Conakry in Guinea, with others in Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Ivory Coast have come together to expose the harsh truth about fake and substandard medicines through a video.
Through this partnership, the Alliance hopes to support existing work and looks forward to advancing future projects the University is working to initiate. The Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at Université la Source Conakry, Professor Sylla, notes that “this year, because we have students from many French-speaking areas of Africa, we plan to also collaborate and cooperate with the University of Haiti on a campaign for substandard and falsified medicines”.
The Fight the Fakes Alliance is excited to welcome the Université la Source Conakry and looks forward to advancing the fight against SFs together.
About Fight the Fakes
Fight the Fakes is a campaign that aims to raise awareness about the dangers of fake medicines. The campaign gives a voice to those who have been personally impacted and shares the stories of those working to put a stop to this threat to public health. It seeks to build a global movement of organizations and individuals who will shine light on the negative impact that fake medicines have on people around the globe and to reduce the negative consequences on individuals worldwide. Fight the Fakes campaign is the first campaign to address the issue of responsibility from the beginning to the end of the pharmaceutical supply chain, by involving and coordinating stakeholders from a wide range of backgrounds.
About Université la Source Conakry
Université la Source Conakry is a private University of Medicine and Pharmacy with an emphasis on inclusivity and research-intensive engagement. The University is one of the largest and most diverse in the Republic of Guinea and is recognized and accredited in of Africa including Madagascar. The University also has many University students who were victims of falsified and substandard medical products (SFs) in the past, which is what motivated them to study pharmacy or medicine so that this would not happen to others in the future.
Learn more here.
About substandard and falsified medical products
The WHO defines falsified medicines as medicines that deliberately/fraudulently misrepresent their identity, composition or source. Nearly any type of pharmaceutical product can be and has been falsified: whether “lifestyle” medicines, including erectile dysfunction and weight loss medicines, or lifesaving medicines including those used to treat malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other life-threatening conditions. Manufacturers of fake medicines do not discriminate – fake medicines can be both long established and recently marketed medicines, both branded and generic, and both domestically manufactured and imported.
