27 (Fake pills)

27. Fake pills( Fake malaria pills haunt Asians)

To my own point of view fake pills is irreparable harm for our body. But the fact is there are so many people who make their money selling fake products. And their number is unlikely to diminish in the near future. So how to protect yourself? One of the best way is to is ask if the item is available in its original packaging.

But sometimes even the most cautious steps powerless.

So here s a story of one family from Cambodia ].

When the chills and fever struck (озноб и лихорадка), Ngeit Ngor knew his 14-year-old daughter needed drugs urgently. Like most farmers in this remote northern province of Cambodia, he and his wife both have malaria at least once a year, so the symptoms were clear. So he went to the pharmacy to buy medicine and he did notice the package looked different, but didn’t think it mattered. The pharmacist, a neighbor and friend, had purchased the drugs from a traveling vendor offering a cut-rate price. Those pills were almost certainly counterfeits (подделки), made to appear like the real thing but worthless, and they are being blamed for hundreds of deaths in remote Cambodian villages.

Fortunately, the fever that struck Ngeit Ngor’s daughter was treated in time and subsided (утихла) , but World Health Organization officials are worrying about counterfeits that began appearing four years ago are now also turning up in Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. The World Health Organization also says malaria kills two people somewhere every minute, and the prospect of counterfeiters working against them in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease has had many victims, worries experts.

More than 27 percent of the malaria drugs purchased at rural (сельский) pharmacies ] for a Cambodian government research project in May were found to be counterfeit. Scientists say that the counterfeiters earn money by killing people and they are right. It’s pure blood money. But they will never even think about it. That’s why we should find the ways how to verify the authenticity of pills we take and to protect ourselves.