Counterfeit medicines in socioeconomic perspective

Abstract

Counterfeit medicines potentially reach 70% of the global drug markets, and the largest proportion is found in developing countries. Increasing public awareness of counterfeit medicines will automatically affect the demand for counterfeit medical products that will finally reduce counterfeit medicine activities. However, raising awareness of the dangers of counterfeit medicines is a challenging task because public health professionals need to consider diversity of social, economic and educational factors. This study examined peer-reviewed journal articles, media reports, official government and non-government reports. As many as 179 papers (1990 to 2014) were retrieved to identify the relationship between Human Development Index (HDI) of the USA, Japan, Brazil, Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria, and the type of counterfeit medicines. An electronic search was conducted using the following databases, such as Medline, Scopus, CINAHL, Embase, Google Scholar. Counterfeit disease curing medicines are found in high varieties most likely in countries with low HDI. At the same time, medicines for lifestyle are not solely found in countries with high HDI, but also exist in low to medium HDI.