The United Arab Emirates looks set to become the nerve centre in a regional effort to combat the counterfeit medicine trade in the Middle East, according to the country’s Ministry of Health.
At the Regional Conference on Fighting Counterfeit Medicines last week, the UAE was nominated to relay information on counterfeit medicines to other countries in the region and to serve as a testing ground for technologies designed to screen shipments of medicines at warehouses, port and airports.
The Middle East has become a focus for anti-counterfeiting efforts because it appears to serve as a transit hub for fake shipments en route to other parts of the world, including the EU, with the UAE’s port at Dubai a focal point.
A report released in July by the European Commission found that in 2008, the most common origin of illegal medicines seized at EU borders was India with 52 per cent of the total, but Syria and UAE ranked second a third with 37 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively.
The UAE will also set up a committee to investigate the nature of the trade in the Middle East, and has banned re-exporting of medicines without Ministry approval, in order to prevent the country being used as a staging post for counterfeits.
The conference, which was sponsored by Pfizer and the UAE Ministry of Health, was attended by 920 delegates from central and local governments and enforcement agencies from across the Middle East.
Among the statistics reported at the conference were that Dubai customs seized $5.4m worth of counterfeit drugs in a single raid in September 2007, and in the first five months of 2008 seized and destroyed 293 tonnes of counterfeit products.
The conference was opened by UAE Health Minister Hanif Hassan Ali and featured presentations by Pfizer Director of Security David Shore, and Ashley How of the Pharmaceutical Security Institute