<p>   u00a0</p>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   More than a third of malaria drugs examined by scientists in Southeast Asia were fake, and a similar proportion analysed in Africa were below standard, doctors warned today.u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   &quot;These findings are a wake-up call demanding a series of interventions to better define and eliminate both criminal production and poor manufacturing of antimalarial drugs,&quot; said Joel Breman of the Fogarty International Center at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).</div>  <div>   u00a0</div>  <div>   <img alt="" src="/imagedata/2012/may/mosquito.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 335px; " /></div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Trawling through surveys and published literature, the researchers found that in seven Southeast Asian countries, 36 percent of 1,437 samples, from five categories of drugs were counterfeit.u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Thirty-per cent of the samples failed a test of their pharmaceutical ingredients. In 21 sub-Saharan countries, 20 per cent of more than 2,500 samples tested in six drug classes turned out to be falsified, and 35 per cent were below pharmaceutical norms.u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Sub-standard medications are a major problem in the fight against malaria, a disease which killed 655,000 people in 2010, according to the UN&#39;s World Health Organisation (WHO).u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Many of the drugs that are being faked or poorly manufactured are artemisin derivatives, the study said. This is a special worry, for artemisinins are the frontline treatment for malaria, replacing drugs to which the malaria parasite has become resistant.u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   The study says there are many causes for the problem, ranging from widespread self-prescription of drugs to shoddy controls to monitor drug quality and prosecute counterfeiters.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   &quot;Poor-quality antimalarial drugs are very likely to jeopardise the unprecedented progress and investments in control and elimination of malaria made in the past decade,&quot; said Breman.u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Last month, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle reported that artemisin-resistant malaria that was first spotted in Cambodia in 2006 has since surged 800 kilometers westward to the Thailand-Myanmar border.</div>

More than a third of malaria drugs examined by scientists in Southeast Asia were fake, and a similar proportion analysed in Africa were below standard, doctors warned today

More than third of malaria drugs are fake

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More than third of malaria drugs are fake

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