[afro-nets] Fake antimalaria drugs in africa (2)

["Peter Burgess" <peterbnyc@gmail.com>]

Dear Colleagues

The problem of drug quality has been an issue for a very long time ... not only in Africa, but everywhere. It is probably as bad as anywhere, however, in Africa.

The fact that this issue has been around for decades suggests that there is no easy fix. I would argue against initiatives that centralize more and more power with either Government entities or the UN agencies. Rather I would argue for Civil Society to take on much more responsibility and get itself organized as a countervailing power against both corrupt greed on the part of enterprise and inefficiency and corruption on the part of governmental and supra-governmental entities.

The problem with drugs arises at some point between high quality manufacture and their use ... maybe in a remote rural setting. There is a whole value chain and system of logistics that needs to be fully functional ... all of it ... not just the easy bits.

There are technologies now available that would make end to end logistics secure ... such systems are in place where the corporate world does not want its stocks to be compromised ... but there is no motivation yet for these technologies to be deployed merely for a public benefit. My hope is that in due course, with the advent of universal community impact accountancy, there will be incentive to use best practices for everything that is of importance in society.

Sincerely

Peter Burgess

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Peter Burgess
The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York
www.tr-ac-net.org
Community Impact Accopuntancy (CIA)
Integrated Malaria Management Consortium (IMMC)
The Tr-Ac-Net blogs ... start at http://tracnetvision.blogspot.com
+1 917 432 1191 or +1 212 772 6918 
mailto:peterbnyc@gmail.com