Counterfeit injections invade Lebanon.. What they do to the body is dangerous. Have they been withdrawn from the market?

Lebanese health sector officials revealed that 11 people suffered attacks of alarmingly low blood sugar this year, and that one of them was transferred to a hospital on suspicion of using a fraudulent injection of the drug “Ozambik” produced by Novonordisk for diabetics.

Rita Karam, an official at the Ministry of Health, said that officials suspected that the injections they took were fraudulent after discovering that their doses differed from the doses of the original Ozambik injection pens.

Reuters interviews with law enforcement, anti-fraud and public health officials last month showed that a huge number of counterfeit injections had been discovered in circulation due to increased demand for Ozambic and other weight-loss drugs, including Eli Lilly’s Mongaro and Novo’s Wijovi.

Counterfeit Ozambik products have already been found in at least 17 countries, including Britain, Germany, Egypt and Russia.

Several countries asked pharmacies and consumers to be careful of counterfeit products because their ingredients are not clear.

Karam said that the Ministry had begun investigating the 11 cases, but was unable to determine the sources of the medicines or the numbers printed on their labels, which allows tracking their production history, which made it difficult to know what the patients had taken in the first place.

She added that three of them used the drug Ozambik, which is suspected to be adulterated, to control diabetes, and that four used it to control weight, while the remaining four used it for unspecified reasons.
People with diabetes need to control their blood sugar well, which can be done using a variety of medications including Ozempic.

When the blood glucose level drops sharply, they can suffer from low blood sugar, with symptoms that may include headaches or dizziness, and the symptoms can progress to loss of consciousness or seizures.

Withdrawal from markets
According to the ministry’s website, two orders were issued regarding the recall of Ozambik in January 2023. Rita said that no cases of possible use of non-original Ozambik injections were reported in Lebanon last year.

Novo Nordisk said that it investigates every case of fraud it finds in its products and reports it to the local authorities, and that it has developed a guide for health care providers in the Middle East to explain how to detect counterfeit medicines.

More than a quarter of adults in Lebanon suffer from obesity, according to figures from the World Obesity Federation for 2017. Obesity is closely linked to type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form of the disease. (Sky News)