The Jamaica Pharmaceutical Council says there is a prevalence of counterfeit and uncustomed medication in the country, posing serious danger to health and the possibility of death.

Chair of the council Dr Ernestine Watson raised an alarm on the matter Wednesday at an anti-illicit trade forum organised by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) at AC Marriot Hotel in St Andrew.

Dr Watson told the forum of a cancer patient who was being treated with a counterfeit drug, which did nothing for her. In the end, she realised she had been a victim of deceit.

“You can well imagine that this patient had been treated and the drug had absolutely no use,” she said.

Watson also said there were people being treated with a particular drug for blood clot. However, the drug contained contaminants.

“That drug is a very commonly used drug and it is used by patients with heart conditions, children who are unable to produce their own blood clotting agents and in that particular case, over 100 persons died. There was another case where a kidney failure patient was treated with a drug for anaemia and after six weeks of therapy, which is quite expensive, it turned out that it was a fake drug.

“If we think about it, antibiotics, which is one of the main drugs that are counterfeited, what you find is that we have a serious condition where the body becomes accustomed to the drug and it has no effect and so we have the superblock,” she said.

“I am sure you heard about a case where a Miss World was being treated for a simple infection and she died because of antibiotic resistance. I could go on and on,” Dr Watson said.

She pointed out that the Ministry of Health’s regulatory division has robust standards; however, there are inefficiencies in the system.

Additionally, she said, drug shortages contribute significantly to the problem.

“Currently, legally, persons have to wait five to seven years [for distributors] to get one drug registered. We also have the problem of shortages. You do know that if there are shortages of drugs, it leaves room for illegal drugs to be imported. Therefore, the trade becomes a big issue and is very difficult to detect,” Dr Watson said.

“There is another issue, where even where it is not a counterfeit, the local distributor who has the right to the drug loses because the drugs are coming in uncustomed.

“Even for drugs where there is not a shortage worldwide, we in Jamaica are having problems getting the drugs here because of the length of time it takes to register a drug. A drug like Ozempic, which everybody knows, is not registered in Jamaica but I am sure you can get Ozempic in Jamaica. These are the issues [that] as a council we are very concerned about,” she said, adding that the illicit system is so advanced that the players have websites and contact numbers for people to place orders for drugs.

“As the chairperson of the Pharmacy Council, I get all of the links and when you get on to a link you get information. I don’t know how they realise who is contacting them, because after the second call the site goes away or the number that you call is no longer in service. This is happening in Jamaica and is happening at a very vast and expansive rate,” Dr Watson said.

“A lot of our distributors are frustrated. Recently, in Trinidad and Tobago, one company was trying to register a particular drug throughout the Caribbean. That drug was registered in Trinidad, Bahamas, and another place. They were waiting on Jamaica to launch the product. Eventually, they left us out and the product was launched in all the other countries except Jamaica,” she said, pointing to inefficiencies in the system that force people to look to the black market.

Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner of Police Anthony McLaughlin, who heads the Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime Division (C-TOC), told the forum that there has been a big problem with counterfeit sexual enhancement drugs.

“One of the areas that we have found counterfeit in is pharmaceutical. At a conference last week I told them that I went into a market downtown and saw saline. That’s the clear bag with clear fluid you would see in the hospital. I saw somebody pushing it on a handcart and selling it. Sexual enhancement tablets like Viagra and the others, they’re plentiful out there and we do not know the composition of those tablets. We do not know if they have the right quantities of the ingredients in them,” he said.

Even though a lot of men gravitate towards the fake tablets, he encouraged them not to purchase erectile dysfunction drugs from the streets.

“I am not picking on Viagra, but it is something that is on the market. We had a representative from Pfizer who came to Jamaica for a seminar and when you hold the two tablets together it is very very difficult to tell which is real. But the P in the word Pfizer was a little bit off and the colour was a little bit off [on the fake Viagra]. You not knowing exactly what to look for, it can be passed on to you as a genuine product,” he said.

“My warning to men is to go to the pharmacy and get the right thing. I encourage people to do the right thing. If we are brand sensitive, we need to ensure we get the right brands. Criminals are the beneficiaries in most cases of these illicit goods. As we work together with various stakeholders and rights owners I want us to continue to make Jamaica be a beacon to the rest of the Caribbean and the world and that we do not accept dumping of goods and we do not encourage or appreciate illicit trade,” McLaughlin said.

President of the JCC Phillip Ramson said that illicit trade is a national concern that usually flies over the heads of Jamaicans until they see a headline about a major drug bust or seizure of illicit goods.

“This issue is much deeper. The impact is far-reaching. Legitimate businesses suffer, the Government loses vital revenue and public safety is compromised. It is estimated that Jamaica loses between $6 billion and $10 billion a year through illicit trade, due to uncollected duties, taxes and fees,” the senior cop said.