Since the health contingency began due to Covid-19, the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) has issued five health alerts for Stole and counterfeiting of medicines to treat diabetes, cancer, HIV, epilepsy and ophthalmic use.
Industry representatives reported that thefts occur in the transportations that deliver the drugs to the points of sale and in the absence of street vendors due to the pandemic, now the stolen drugs are marketed on the internet.
“Theft in pharmacies remains at the usual figures, the increase in crime now occurs in transportation that is responsible for distributing drugs to pharmacies. In these months of the contingency, theft increased 20% and the most vulnerable route is the one that runs through Puebla, Tlaxcala and Veracruz, and the sale through social networks like Facebook it has been triggered, due to the fact that many street markets stopped installing themselves through the Covid-19, “said Juvenal Becerra, president of the National Union of Pharmacy Entrepreneurs (Unefarm).
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The drugs with the most reports of theft and counterfeiting are mostly for chronic diseases such as diabetes, different types of cancer, hypertension and HIV, conditions with which it is easier to develop complications from Covid-19.
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Amid the pandemic, medicine theft has shown an alarming increase
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According to the technical reports on the coronavirus, which has left more than 71 thousand positive cases in the country, 21% of patients have hypertension, 21% obesity, 18% diabetes and 8% smoking, while of the close to 8 thousand deaths, 42% lived with hypertension, 38% with diabetes, 27% with obesity and 10% with smoking.
Hugo López-Gatell, Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, has specified that in the face of the coronavirus, Mexico faces a particular challenge, which is the associated chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
“In the Covid-19 epidemic, Mexicans are at greater risk of complications from chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension resulting from poor diet. If you suffer from any of these and have symptoms of coronavirus, seek medical attention,” emphasizes the official at all evening conferences.
On May 12, following the theft of 7,200 pieces of the drug Dulaglutide, brand name Trulicity, Cofepris issued an alert to warn the population, pharmacies and points of sale not to purchase this drug, not knowing if compromised its sanitary quality. These are pens preloaded with substances to control the diabetes mellitus type 2, which have an expiration date of August 6, 2021 and sanitary registration 173M2015 SSA IV.
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According to the manufacturer’s specifications, the medicine must be kept in refrigerated conditions during its storage, distribution and sale. Failure to do so jeopardizes its effectiveness and results in glucose levels control, Cofepris warned.
He indicated that he requested the manufacturing laboratory Eli Lilly and the Compañía México S.A. de C.V., to inform their distributors and marketers of the theft, in order to prevent it from being sold irregularly.
“The problem is that once they steal the medicine, they also clone it and it is what they sell on social networks, the call would be to society to avoid buying medicines through these types of pages, because they have no evidence that they have not compromised. its quality and effectiveness, which can bring health problems ”, assured Becerra Orozco.
The pharmaceutical representative warned that the sale of stolen or counterfeit medicine translates into the annual loss of 10 billion pesos for the pharmaceutical industry.
“If people buy in street markets or now on the internet black market, it is evident that sales are going down, in addition to exposing their health, because they do not know if the medicines that are mostly controlled use, followed the appropriate protocols for maintain its effectiveness and safety ”, he commented.
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Regarding the cancer treatment dasatinib, the regulator in charge of José Alonso Novelo Baeza indicated that the company Bristol-Myers Squibb carried out analyzes of the batches of the product, derived from notifications of suspected falsification, and it was detected that the samples analyzed do not correspond to the Active ingredient dasatinib, as well as differences in typography, lot number and quality of primary and secondary packaging.
The situation is similar for the drug Tegretol LC, an anticonvulsant used in epilepsy disorder, for which Cofepris triggered the alert due to a complaint filed by the Novartis company. The other counterfeit drugs are prednisolone, an anti-inflammatory for ophthalmic use, and the antiretroviral Atripla containing efavirenz, emtricitabine, and tenofovir.
Juvenal Becerra warned that controlled drugs are what are most marketed on the black market, “that is why the robbery is done to carriers, because in pharmacies they are not always on hand, but people must be very careful because we insist on the issue of cloning and counterfeiting. “
On different Facebook pages, in the marketplace area, medicines are offered in bulk, “medicine is transferred, the total supplier cost is 3,200, offer, only 1,100 pesos, note, it has not expired,” he says. a publication.
“I deliver on line B of the Metro San Lázaro, Garibaldi, Guerrero, Buenavista and Oceania,” says another post offering losartan, which is used to treat high blood pressure.
In other publications clonazepam is offered, which is used in various seizure disorders and in the treatment of panic disorder, levetiracetam is also sold, which has a commercial price of one thousand 57 pesos in pharmacies, but on the Facebook page it is offered in one hundred pesos .
In this regard, figures from the National Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Canifarma) indicate that around 8 million people consume stolen medicines, which are sometimes expired, which means that they pose a health risk.
The highest incidence is in Jalisco, Michoacán, Puebla, Nuevo León and Mexico City.
Canifarma estimates that the total value of the drug black market in the country can go from 650 to 1.5 billion dollars a year.
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