Health officials said Thursday that they found two new fake drugs circulating in Cambodian pharmacies in late December, adding to 35 other fake drugs they confiscated over the past few months.
Ung Phirun, Ministry of Health secretary of state, said the ZPC- labeled glucose solution and a another drug called Zinagin Injection, purportedly produced by the Liyuan Pharmaceutical of China, are fake.
Over the past several months, the ministry has shown advertisements on television warning that drugs made by Thai enterprises Brainy Pharmaceutical, A Pharma, DP Pharma, SD Pharma and Master Pharmaceutical, T O Chemicals, Remy Pharma and KB laboratories are fraudulent.
The now-banned drugs include everything from treatments for typhoid fever, to common antibiotics such as penicillin, to vitamins.
Veng Thai, director of the Phnom Penh Municipal Health Department, said that a lot of fake medicines are for sale in the city. “Fake drugs made from poisons are very dangerous and can kill us,” he said, adding that fraudulent pharmacists use toxins to convince patients that the drugs are not just placebos and that they are having some effect.
Veng Thai said that many people who sell medicine are completely untrained and the public should not buy medicine without first seeing a doctor.
