Corruption &Drug Quality &Funding Bill Brieger | 31 Jan 2013 10:56 am
Fakes and Fraud: another threat to malaria funds
While some countries are being praised this week for their progress in controlling malaria, Uganda seems to be suffering from a double knock out punch when it comes to malaria financing. Challenges have appeared in both the private and public sectors.
In the most recent scorecard from the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) scored poorly in terms of long lasting insecticide treated net distribution and low on the measure of government financial support for the health sector.
The private sector challenge has come in the form of fake medicines in local shops. This comes in the form of a threat to individuals and families who spend their hard earned cash, that is out-of-pocket expenditure (OOP) of malaria medicines that at best inappropriate and at worse are devoid of active ingredients, increasing the likelihood that the sick person will develop severe disease and maybe die.
Specifically the Washington Post reported that an indigenous medical practitioner “in Kampala, says he has seen a big increase in business as patients turned off by the prospect of dangerous fake drugs seek relief from illness.†The article explains that although “Officials and international aid agencies have long encouraged the sick to place their trust in modern medicine. But fake pharmaceuticals believed to have come from Asia have flooded†African Markets including Uganda.
The irony is that Uganda is part of the testing of the Affordable Medicines Facility malaria (AMFm) project that was supposed to drive out fake and inappropriate medicines by making low cost (subsidized) quality antimalarials available in both public and private sectors. While Uganda witnessed an increase in market share of the green-leaf branded quality assured artemisinin-based combination therapy drugs, it did not achieve other benchmarks such as supportive behavior change communication and low cost targets (mark-up averaged 133% – highest among the 8 pilots).
The second threat comes from extensive embezzlement by national malaria program staff. Earlier this month Uganda was in the news for returning 4 million Euro of misappropriated funds to the Irish Government.
Then an ongoing investigation into embezzlement came to light a few days ago. The Observer Newspaper as shared on AllAfrica.com reported that …
“An investigation into the financial practices of officials running the ministry of Health’s Malaria Control programme (MCP) shows they forged almost everything from workshops, car hires, allowances and fuel expenses. The investigation has now shifted its focus to the extent of the forgery and theft by officials implicated in the loss of nearly Shs 78bn (US $29m). The shift in the focus of the inquiry follows a review of stacks of documents provided by three suspects involved in the MCP scandal. Police confirm that the documents show the extent of the forgery by some officials involved in the anti-malaria campaign.”
In these times when it is difficult to increase health development spending for malaria both domestically and from international donors, all efforts are needed to ensure that waste and fraud are eliminated.