Killing, not curing: deadly boom in counterfeit medicine in Afghanistan

At the beginning of December Najib’s 10-week-old daughter fell ill, crying with stomach ache late into the night. The next day her chest seemed to hurt, so Najib took her to the doctor, who prescribed paracetamol for the pain, phenobarbital for sedation and the antibiotic cefixime to kill potential bacteria.  But over the next few days the baby’s health deteriorated. “She was healthy. We did not expect that this disease would affect her like that,” Najib, 30, said. Years ago, when the family was living in Pakistan, other children in the family with similar ailments had been treated effectively with small doses of paracetamol and antibiotics.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/07/counterfeit-medicine-afghanistan-corruption-border-controls-drugs-poor