NEW DELHI: Two WHO reports released on Tuesday estimated that roughly 10.5% of medicines sold in low- and middle-income countries could be substandard or falsified. The size of the dubious drugs market in these countries is at about $30 billion. However, experts slammed the basis for these estimates and said they were grossly exaggerated.One report was on the cases reported to the WHO's surveillance system for dubious drugs. Two WHO reports released on Tuesday estimated that roughly 10.5% of medicines being sold in Low and Middle Income countries (LMIC) could be substandard or falsified.Hence, they concluded, the size of the dubious drugs market in these countries at about $30 billion. The cases reported between 2013 and 2016 were categorised under various heads such as "falsified", "suspected falsified", "substandard", "diverted", "stolen" and "unlicensed" medical products.However, after the World Health Assembly decided in 2016 to categorise compromised medicines as "substandard" and "falsified" and adopted working definitions for the same, the GSMS cases appear to have been automatically categorised as one of these two, said TWN.

Source: Times of India November 28, 2017 20:26 UTC