It is necessary to warn nationals traveling from abroad to be vigilant about purchasing medications locally while visiting the homelands. It could turn out these medications are substandard, or potentially deadly. It would be wiser, and safer, and perhaps less expensive in the long run, to procure all medications abroad before heading back to our respective homelands.
Recent reports regarding the substandard quality of prescription drugs out of Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago are cause for major concern. According to the reports out of Georgetown last week, Director of the Government-Analyst Food and Drug Department, Marlan Cole, admitted many substandard and potentially deadly medications are now being unknowingly distributed by medical professionals in Guyana. Alarmingly, his estimate is there could be an average of about 30 percent of fake or substandard pharmaceuticals currently in circulation, Kaieteur News reported.
“We have had some very serious incidents. We are losing patients because of some of these drugs,” he said. He indicated his department is investigating cases where medications have “indirectly” led to fatalities.
Similarly, last week Trinidad and Tobago’s Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh revealed some medications now being dispensed under the state-funded Chronic Disease Assistance Programme were substandard. His revelation was based on data and analysis from the Pan American Health Organisation. Most affected were drugs dispensed for diabetes and hypertension; however, there are other substandard medications in circulation in Trinidad and Tobago.
Deyalsingh’s revelation was stunning as it was disheartening, since it affects thousands of users in the CDAP initiative in Trinidad and Tobago. It goes without saying the very lives, and the quality of lives being lived by those suffering with such chronic illnesses, are being deleteriously affected by the poor efficacy of the medications taken.
For medication taken in good faith to not be within the range of the required potency, or worse, it being fake, not only short-changes the user, but at the same time puts the patient in danger, which in the worst case, could be fatal.
So it goes without saying that every patient in Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, has every right to be worried right now about the efficacy of the medications being taken, particularly in cases where its purchase is an expensive expenditure. This is certainly adding salt to the wound.
Therefore, it is imperative both governments of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana now responsibly and properly investigate, and disclose which drugs in circulation are below the required standard and potency. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, Health Minister Deyalsingh should have made public the PAHO analysis upon which he based his statements last week.
Also, both governments must also begin to deal with what the potential impact could be on patients whose health have deteriorated as a result of having faith in, but taking such substandard medicine. Further, the government must begin thinking about the fall-out that is bound to come from families who have lost loved ones due to provable instances where substandard medications led to the “serious incidents” as is being described, and the “indirect” fatalities that are being investigated in Georgetown. As it stands, the seriousness and significance of this situation puts it in the realm of nothing less than a life-and-death matter.
Moving forward, it is also now more than apparent governments throughout the region need to put in place well-equipped and properly staffed Food and Drug Departments with the mandate to test the authenticity of pharmaceuticals coming into each country. Such vigilance would in the future help to prevent a recurrence of this sad state of affairs.
Meanwhile, for those of us here in the GTA planning to visit the region, particularly Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, it is imperative that prescription medication be procured abroad before traveling to our homelands.