WHO releases medical product alert on Monday regarding falsified Quinine Sulphate 300mg presented in below six different combinations of batch numbers, expiry and manufacturing dates.
The fraudulent use of the outdated WHO Essential Drugs Programme logo may create a false sense of product quality.
“Recently received results of analysed samples show they do not contain any of the expected active ingredients.” says WHO.
Quinine sulphate is referenced on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, to manage and treat severe malaria. At this stage, no adverse reactions attributed to these falsified products have been reported to WHO.
All the above falsified products claim to be manufactured by REMEDICA LTD – Cyprus and to contain 300mg of quinine sulphate. Remedica Ltd has confirmed that:
- they did not manufacture the above falsified products; and
- the variable data (batch number and dates) on the above products has never been used by Remedica.
These falsified medicines display the following common characteristics:
- grey or white plastic containers which contain 1000 loose circular tablets each;
- display the outdated WHO Essential Drugs Programme logo;
- English and French labelling with mistakes and inconsistencies; and
- discovered at patient level in both regulated and unregulated outlets.
Consumers were addressed to check and not to use any of these medication. If any adverse event occurs having used these products, please seek immediate advice from a qualified healthcare professional, and ensure they report the incident to local Ministry of Health/National Medicines Regulatory Authorities/National Pharmacovigilance Centre.
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