Ivory Coast seizes 200 tonnes of fake medicines: police

Police in Ivory Coast seized 200 tonnes of fake medicines in Abidjan this week, arresting four suspects including one Chinese national, the gendarmerie told AFP Saturday. The haul included fake medicines and drugs that were not-full strength, packed into a two-story house that also had a basement, said a spokesman.

"In the house, all the rooms contained medicines and sometimes there was only just space to move." There were all sorts of medicines and a lot of them had Chinese packaging, he added.

Around 42 percent of medicines circulating in sub-Saharan Africa are fake, making it the region hardest hit worldwide by this trafficking which is controlled by organized crime. Unlike the trade of illegal drugs, the sale of fake medicines goes largely unpunished, considered a minor offense involving the violation of intellectual property.

But according to the World Health Organization (WHO), fake medicines cause 100,000 deaths a year in Africa.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)