BBC World Service
BbcIndian pharmaceutical companies are illegally exported to West Africa, which are causing a public health crisis in countries, including Kana, Nigeria and Cote D ‘Ivoire, and manufacture high addictive opioids, and the BBC Eye Survey results. It is revealed.
Headquartered in Mumbai, Aveo Pharmaceuticals creates a variety of pills packaged to go to another brand name and look like legitimate medicines. But all include harmful ingredients such as powerful opioids, Tapentadol and Carisoprodol, and addictive carisoprodol in Europe.
The combination of this drug does not have licenses that can be used anywhere in the world and can cause breathing difficulties and seizures. Overdose can be killed. Despite the danger, this opioid is popular as a street medicine in many African countries. Because they are cheap and widely available.
The BBC World Service has found packets of brands with AVEO logos to be sold in the streets of Ghana, Nigeria, Irian City and the city.
The BBC re -tracked the medicine to AVEO’s factory in India and sent a secret agent in the factory and poses as an African businessman to supply Opioid to Nigeria. The BBC uses a hidden camera to shoot one of AVEO’s director Vinod Sharma and presented the same dangerous product as the BBC sold throughout Africa.
In a secret scene, the agent tells Sharma that his plan sells pills to Nigeria’s teenagers who like this product. Sharma is not fallen. “Okay,” he replied before explaining that if the user took two or three pills at a time, he could relax and agree with “height”. At the end of the meeting, Sharma added, “This is very harmful to health.”
It is a project that damages health and destroys the potential of millions of young people across Africa.
In the Tamale city, many young people in the northern part of Ghana have created a voluntary task of about 100 local citizens with the mission of attacking drug merchants and taking this drug. I am taking illegal opioids. In the street.
“This drug consumes the spirit of those who abuse them.” An addict of another Male says simply. He said that the drug was “wasting our lives.”
The BBC team jumped into a motorcycle, followed the task force and got a tip for drug transactions and began to attack in one of the poorest areas of other Male. On the way, they passed the young people who were in the group who took this medicine, according to local residents.
When the dealer was caught, he was holding a plastic bag filled with a green pill called Tafrodol. The packet has a unique logo from Aveo Pharmaceuticals.
Aveo’s pills are not only in other male that causes misery. The BBC found that a similar product made by Aveo was seized by the police elsewhere in Ghana.
We also found evidence that AVEO’s pills will be sold on the streets of Nigeria and Court Di Boule.
According to the public export data that can be obtained, Aveo Pharmaceuticals delivers the tablet to Ghana and other African countries with a sister company called Westfin International.
Nigeria, which has a population of 225 million, offers the largest market of this pill. According to the National Statistical Bureau of Nigeria, about 4 million Nigerians were estimated to abuse some form of opioids.
Brig Gen Mohammed Buba Marwa, chairman of Nigeria’s drugs and law enforcement agencies (NDLEA), told the BBC that “is in all locals of our young people, our family, and Nigeria.”
In 2018, after the BBC African Syan Survey on Sales of Opioid as a street drug, the Nigerian authorities tried to catch an analgesic painkiller, which was widely abused by Tramadol.
The government prohibited the sale of Tramadol without prescription, imposed a strict restriction on the maximum dose, and cracked down on illegal pills. At the same time, Indian authorities have strengthened their export regulations for Tramadol.
Shortly after this crackdown, Aveo Pharmaceuticals began to export new pills based on tapentadol, a stronger opioid mixed with muscular charism projols.
West African officials warned that opioid exporters seemed to use this new combination pill as an alternative to Tramadol and avoid crackdowns.
The Aveo factory had a combination of almost ceiling heights. On his desk, Vinod Sharma placed a packet fascinated to the market with a variety of names, including the most popular Tafrodol, Tafrodol, Time Making and Super Royal-225 after packets of Tapentadol-Carisoprodol Cocktail Pills.
He said that the BBC’s secret team can make a new product by combining other drugs by working in the factory.
In the BBC Eye Survey, look at the opioid king of India iPlayer Or be careful with the UK Youtube.
Aveo’s new product is much more dangerous than the replaced Tramadol. According to Dr. Lekhansh Shukla, an assistant professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurology, India, Tapentadol said, “It provides the effect of opioids including very deep sleep.
“It can be deep enough for people to breathe, and it can lead to overdose.” “And with him, you are giving a very deep sleep and rest to another agent, Carisoprodol. It sounds like a very dangerous combination.”
Karibozol was banned because it was addictive in Europe. It has been approved for use in the United States, but only for up to three weeks. Forbidden symptoms include anxiety, insomnia and hallucinations.
When mixed with Tapentadol, withdrawal is “more serious” compared to ordinary opioids, Dr. Shukla said. “It’s a very painful experience.”
He said he knew there was no clinical trial on the efficacy of the union. Unlike Tramadol, which is legal to use as a limited dose, the Tapentadol-Carisoprodol cocktail is “not sounded like a reasonable combination.” “This is not without the license used in our country.”
In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot legally manufacture and export unlicensed drugs unless these drugs meet the standards of imported countries. According to Ghana’s national drug enforcement agency, AVEO delivers products similar to Tafrodol. By delivering Tafrodol to Cana, Aveo violates the Indian Law.
We put these arguments in Vinod Sharma and Aveo Pharmaceuticals. They did not respond.
CDSCO, an Indian pharmaceutical regulator, said that the Indian government recognizes the responsibility for global public health and is trying to ensure that India is responsible and strong.
In addition, exports from India to other countries were closely monitored, and the recent enhanced regulations were strictly implemented. In addition, the importing country has called an importer to support India’s efforts by ensuring that it has a similar regulatory system.
CDSCO has solved problems with other countries, including Africa, and is trying to cooperate with them to prevent them. The regulatory agency said it would take immediate measures against pharmaceutical companies related to negligence.
AVEO does not mean that the only Indian company produces and exports opioids without licenses. According to the publicly available export data, other pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing similar products and drugs with different branding can be widely used throughout Africa.
These manufacturers are damaging the reputation of the rapidly growing pharmaceutical industry in India, which produces high -quality pharmaceuticals with millions of people worldwide depending on the world and producing vaccines to save millions of lives. The industry’s export is worth at least $ 28 billion per year.
In terms of meeting with Sharma, the BBC’s secret agent says that it should be hidden for his safety. People in the roots of the opioid crisis in Africa actually make this product and ship the ship to our country by container load. Simply describe in business. “
The BBC team, who returned to Ghanata Male, showed AVEO’s Tafrodol more as a last attack along the local task force. That evening they gathered in the local park and picked up the seized medicine.
Zickay, whose packets are falling into gasoline, said, “We are burning with the glare that everyone can see.” You, they will burn your drugs. “
However, even if the flame destroyed hundreds of Tarphrodol packets, the “seller and supplier” at the top of this chain, thousands of miles from India, stirs millions of people and enriched the interests of unhappy.
