Improving the quality and accessibility of african medicine

The private sector and pharmaceutical industry in Africa
Providing access to quality medicines still poses a number of challenges in Africa. Distribution channels are often fragmented, with a large number of intermediaries or parallel channels, which often fuel counterfeiting – a real public health issue. For example, it is estimated that some 60% of medicines bought in the Gulf of Guinea are classified as “SF” (substandard and falsified) by the World Health Organization (WHO). Furthermore, the problem does not only affect Africa as 10% of all the medicines in circulation around the world could be “SF”.