Dive Brief:
- According to a broad new series of studies, counterfeit drugs are the biggest threat to the global supply chain—but substandard and degraded drugs are also poor-quality threats.
- According to a 2014 study, counterfeit drugs generate approximately $75 billion annually.
- In an analysis that looked at problems with supply-chain integrity, researchers found that there were 1,510 reports of counterfeit drugs found in the legitimate supply chain between 2009 and 2011.
Dive Insight
The problem with substandard, counterfeit, and degraded medications is that they constitute a major public health threat that goes beyond contamination and toxicity and actually increases the threat of increased resistance to drugs.
While the threat can seem abstract, the quantified reality is intense. In fact, in 2013, 122,350 children under five died in Sub-Sahara Africa as a result of poor-quality antimalarial drugs.