Counterfeit clippings: global news round-up

Pfizer donates TruScan scanners, South African raid nets fake goods including medicines, plus updates from Tanzania, the USA and Nigeria.

Pfizer has donated handheld TruScan scanners to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) in Kenya and Ghana's Food and Drug Authority (FDA) to help the agencies fight the trade in counterfeit medicines, according to the Business Daily newspaper. The drugmaker also plans to provide one of the $60,000 Thermo Scientific-made units to the authorities in Uganda. "This is part of our contribution to fighting medicine counterfeiting in Kenya and Africa," said Enrico Liggeri, Pfizer's managing director for Nigeria, Ghana and East Africa.

Counterfeit goods worth 20m rand ($2.6m), including medicines, cosmetics, clothing, shoes and digital media have been seized in raids on various retail outlets in the Bellville business district of Cape Town, South Africa, according to a News24 report. 12 people - all reported to be foreigners - have been arrested in the operation.

The authorities in Tanzania have been given five Minilabs from the Merck KGaA-backed Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF) to help detect counterfeit medicines circulating in the marketplace, according to the Xinhua news agency. Haji Mponda, Tanzania's Health and Social Welfare Minister, said the units would "relieve bottlenecks in quality control for medicines, especially in rural areas".

A man in the USA has been indicted on one count of trafficking in counterfeit goods after a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe led to his arrest on March 19. According to the indictment, Zachary Meece Jones of Sacramento, California, imported fake versions of two erectile dysfunction products - Pfizer's Viagra (sildenafil) and Eli Lilly's Cialis (tadalafil) - and Shire's attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) treatment Adderall (mixed amphetamine salts) from China and sold them online. Meece has pleaded not guilty, but if convicted faces up to 10 years in jail and a maximum fine of $2m.

Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Control (NAFDAC) has carried out a series of inspections in stores selling medicines in rural areas of the country, notably Kogi state, after intelligence indicated that those involved in the trade in counterfeit and substandard medicines had shifted their activities from larger cities and towns. The agency made use of TruScan handheld scanners in the action, according to local news reports.