The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says trafficked medical products kill almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, noting that action is needed to stem the flow.
The report noted that a lack of access to healthcare and medicines had been fuelling a host of opportunists aimed at filling the gaps, the report Trafficking in Medical Products in the Sahel shows.In sub-Saharan Africa, as many as 267,000 deaths per year are linked to falsified and substandard antimalarial medicines, the transnational organised crime threat assessment found.
International operations saw more than 605 tons of medical products seized in West Africa, between January 2017 and December 2021.Diverted from the legal supply chain, the products often come from major exporting countries to the Sahel region, including China, Belgium, France and India. Others are manufactured in neighbouring States.Once in West Africa, smugglers move medical products by bus, cars and trucks to the Sahel, following existing trafficking routes, to avoid border controls.
News reports on drug use for non-medicinal purposes among terrorist groups have documented an Al-Qaida affiliate in Côte d’Ivoire and former Boko Haram recruits in Nigeria, using or attempting to buy the opioid-like clonazepam since at least 2016. Traffickers include pharmaceutical company employees, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors.
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