Vietnam to battle fake medicines with WHO help

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Thursday November 9, 2006

Hanoi- Vietnam is set to launch a crackdown on rampant counterfeiting of medicines with the help of a grant from the World Health Organization, a health official said Thursday. The new crackdown comes as Vietnam makes new commitments to respect intellectual properties as part of its accession to the World Trade Organization.

Pirated software and films are common in Vietnam, where some 90 per cent of software in use is fake.

Fake medicines, though, affect not only international companies' profits but potentially could harm patients who take them believing they are the real thing.

An estimated 25 to 50 per cent of drugs sold in some Vietnamese pharmacies are believed to be fake, mostly pain-killers and antibiotics, according to local media.

"The most common counterfeit medicines are those that are made in Asia but labeled as made in Europe," an official with the Ministry of Health's pharmaceutical management department.

The 60,000-dollar WHO grant is to fund two years of investigations and education campaigns to educate shoppers.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency