Campaign by Story
The threat of fake medicines
Fake medicines can contain dangerous substances, the wrong dose of an active drug, or no effective medicine at all. The consequences are severe — treatment failure, poisoning, the rise of drug resistance, and, far too often, death.
The World Health Organization estimates that up to one million people die each year as a result of fake medicines. Tragically, around 250,000 of these deaths are children who received counterfeit treatments for malaria and pneumonia.
This is a global crisis, with the greatest burden falling on the most vulnerable. Nearly half of all reported cases of fake medicines occur in Africa, where access to reliable healthcare is already fragile. Beyond the immediate health risks, fake medicines erode public trust in healthcare systems and undermine global efforts to improve health outcomes.
Why current detection isn't enough
Despite the scale of the problem, current technologies used to detect fake medicines are often too expensive, too slow, or impossible to deploy widely. These gaps allow counterfeiters to thrive — copying legitimate features and exploiting weak points in the medicine supply chain. New, practical detection solutions are urgently needed.
A solution: FakeMedSensor
The research team at the University of Brighton have seen first-hand the devastating impact that fake medicines have on patients and communities. They have witnessed how trust in healthcare is broken and how lives are put at risk by medicines that should heal, but instead harm.
This has been the drive behind their development of the FakeMedSensor, a breakthrough technology designed to detect fake medicines directly in the field. You can find out more about the technology from here: https://fakemedsensor.com/.
This unique solution is affordable, portable, and capable of verifying medicines within minutes. Its design allows it to be widely deployed across the medicine supply chain — stopping fake medicines before they ever reach a patient.
How you can make a difference
At present, the FakeMedSensor is effective in monitoring some antibiotic medicines. Our target funding will help us to:
• Fund a researcher to establish scientific protocols that widen the pool of fake medicines we can identify
• Conduct vital tests in the field, in low-to-middle income countries extending its positive impact in vulnerable communities
These next steps are critical as every donation helps to protect a life and directly support our mission to deploy FakeMedSensor in real-world settings. Together, we can help build a future where fake medicines are eradicated, trust in healthcare is restored, communities are empowered and lives are saved.