CRIME TRACK
Customs officials are cracking down on counterfeits,
Wassayos Ngamkham
Wutipong Taora examines tiny pills packed in boxes, looking for evidence that fake drugs are being imported.
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| Apack of fake medicine,aChinesemadeversion of Viagra, sits beside Customs official Wutipong Taora as he explainshowto screen out suspicious drugs. SURAPOL PROMSAKANA SAKOLNAKORN |
Dubbed the "fake medicine investigator", Mr Wutipong works for the Investigation and Suppression Bureau under the Customs Department.
He inspects suspicious medicine imported into the kingdom.
Mr Wutipong says there are two types of fake medicine. In the first group are drugs whose ingredients are not registered. The second comprises drugs under fake brand names.
Both can harm consumers and arrive in Thailand from "every direction", through border checkpoints and airports. Some are imported for domestic consumption, others are imported en route to third countries.
There are some basic tricks for telling whether drugs are fake.
Mr Wutipong looks for irregularities in the characteristics of pills, boxes and wrappers. Specialists can tell almost immediately whether drugs are fake, especially those that imitate commercial brands, according to Mr Wutipong.
"Letters on pills and details on the packaging are normally sharper and clearer than for genuine ones," he says.
According to the United States-based Centre for Medicines in the Public Interest, the counterfeit drug trade will be worth US$75 billion (2,600 billion baht) globally in 2010, a 90% jump from 2005.
The World Health Organisation estimates that 30% of medicine in Latin America, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan countries is fake.
Interpol and WHO are working together to stamp out the trade.
Most fake medicine here comes from China, India and Pakistan. Some medicinal drugs are sold here and some are sent on to larger markets in Europe and the US.
A government source said Hong Kong is a large production base for fake medicine in Asia. Major clients include the US, Europe and India.
In Thailand, fake Viagra and Cialis, which are usually prescribed for erectile dysfunction treatment, are the most popular.
Fake Viagra pills are similar to the real ones with Chinese characters on the pills and their boxes, Mr Wutipong says.
For the sake of tourism, the department faces pressure to ease up on regulations governing the shipment of goods in and out of the country. Yet it is aware that easing the rules could make it harder to crack down on fake drugs.
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