Ghana has made commitment to criminalize trafficking of substandard and fake drugs by collaborating and coordinating a new initiative against the menace and by instituting stiffer punishments to deal with offenders.

The new initiative, involving international cooperation derives from the signing of an agreement that involves seven African countries being – Gambia, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Togo as well as the Republic of Congo and Uganda – who are coordinating initial pragmatic measures to curb the practice.

Reports also indicate that the new initiative will be followed by a new legislation which gives a minimum 10 year prison sentence for offenders of fake drug-related crimes.

The resolution dubbed: Lomé Initiative – which is the first time African leaders and key stakeholders in the health sector have moved to tackle the problem of borderless trafficking of fake medicines – seeks to combat the menace as an estimated 120,000 people in Africa die each year because of fake and counterfeit drugs.

Importantly, various governments have now been mandated to institute an effective implementation framework of the agreement with a roadmap that seeks to ensure effective implementation of the agreement.

A recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSG) indicated that some drugs in Ghana, particularly antibiotics, antimalarials, rapid diagnostic test kits, sterile products and emergency drugs among others are of poor quality.

Even more alarming is the fact that some of these substandard drugs have found their way through the Ministry of Health (MOH) procurement system of public hospitals

This is noted to be a serious contributory factor to the high rate of illness and deaths in the country, most specifically with regards to antibiotics.

Currently, the global trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals hovers at around US$200 billion annually, with Africa being among the regions most affected, reports indicate.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 42 percent of all fake medicines reported in the last few years were from Africa, and it estimates that one out of every 10 medical products in low- and middle-income countries, which includes most of Africa, is sub-standard or fake.