A major police operation led by Interpol resulted in the seizure of 9 million counterfeit drugs in Asia.
The traffic in fake medicines is still flourishing in the world, despite numerous initiatives at the local and international levels implemented to stop its progression.
The latest police intervention gives an idea of the scale of the phenomenon. This Monday, Interpol, the international police cooperation organization, announced in September that it had seized nearly 9 million counterfeit treatments in Asia, one of the regions most affected by this scourge.
This operation, dubbed Storm VI, resulted in the arrest of 87 people and 500 pharmacies as well as a hundred online pharmacies were targeted.
In total, the network of traffickers involved spanned 13 countries: Afghanistan, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, Pakistan, Cambodia, China, India, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Multiple drugs
No pathology seems spared when looking at the type of products seized. Among the fake drugs found in the context of Storm VI, antibiotics, diet pills, treatments against erectile dysfunction, or to treat hypertension. In the Philippines, 300 doses of rabies vaccines have also been discovered.
Despite the increasing number of arrests, Interpol believes that the trafficking of these therapeutic products is still as lucrative for the traffickers. The amount of referrals over the past year alone amounted to nearly 6.4 million euros.
Beyond repression, specialists insist on the need to deploy preventive actions in the most affected regions, Africa and Asia in the lead.
In September, a major campaign by the Fondation Chirac raised awareness of the issue of fake drugs, recalling that each year, they kill more than 800,000 people.
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