In the years since the issue of the trade in counterfeit goods has been on the radar of the local Food and Drugs Analyst Department, we have not been able to learn nearly as much as we ought to about the scale of the problem, the dangers that it poses and the extent to which its proliferation hurts both the manufacturers and the distributors of genuine brands. Perhaps more importantly, and particularly as it relates to counterfeit drugs, we remain blissfully unaware of the impact on the nation’s health.
Local media reporting on counterfeiting and the ways in which it impacts on commerce and on the country as a whole is strictly limited and the outcomes of such reporting have failed to throw up any statistics that can be helpful as far as analyzing the scale of the problem is concerned.
In its interviews with this newspaper over the years the Food and Drug Analyst Department has shared limited information on the proliferation of counterfeit goods,