Translated material
0.1 percent risk
Pharmacists counted the number of identified counterfeits
The Russian pharmaceutical market is trying to get rid of its criminal image. For the second year now, according to health officials, the number of detected counterfeit drugs remains at 0.1% of the total number of batches in circulation. As Nikolai Yurgel, head of the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare and Social Development (Roszdravnadzor), said yesterday, in the first half of 2007, 107 batches of 48 types of counterfeit drugs were identified. In 2006, as his predecessor as head of Roszdravnadzor, Ramil Khabriev, assured, almost 160 series of 80 titles were withdrawn from circulation.Experts believe that the work of Roszdravnadzor to identify counterfeits has indeed been noticeably intensified, however, the fight began, in fact, only in the summer, after the Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov signed an agreement with the Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliev on cooperation in the field of suppression offenses in the pharmaceutical market. Now, as Mr. Yurgel explained, information about medicines that have signs of falsification comes to Roszdravnadzor from territorial health authorities, as well as from quality control centers and from manufacturers. If doubts about the authenticity arise, the drugs are sent to expert organizations to confirm the authenticity. If a counterfeit is “caught,” then information about it is transferred to the Interregional Inspection Department of Roszdravnadzor for joint activities with law enforcement agencies.
According to the head of Roszdravnadzor, 90% of identified counterfeits are counterfeits of well-known foreign drugs, and only 10% are counterfeits of Russian drugs. “In 2007, 25% of the identified counterfeits were antispasmodic drugs; 16% - nootropic drugs; 10% - hepatoprojectors; 8% - cardiovascular drugs and vasodilators; 6% are antibiotics,” said Nikolai Yurgel.