Governments have not tackled the problem and pharmaceutical companies are burying the issue, afraid that any publicity given to their medicines being faked will lead to a fall in the sale of the genuine product, according to a documentary.
The problem has been particularly acute with the treatment of malaria in Africa, with anti-malaria drugs faked on an industrial scale. Professor Nick White, of Oxford University, one of the world's leading experts on malaria, said: "We estimate that there are more than one million deaths each year - which is the equivalent of seven jumbo jets going down every day. And 90 per cent of those deaths are in children."
Since the fake drug industry generates tens of billions of dollars per year, there are enablers everywhere who are ready to help.
Nigeria's campaigning drugs regulator, Dora Akunyili, described counterfeiting as "mass murder". She told the documentary, which will be aired today on The Business Channel, a satellite station: "The fake drug racket and the silence associated with it have led to the resurgence of malaria... The companies kept quiet. The regulators were paid off and everybody was helpless. Drug counterfeiters operated in this country and in most developing countries for almost three decades, unchallenged."
