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{
    "id": 76475,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/76475/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 196,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "to use to distinguish between counterfeit medicine and generic medicine. Quite often, the international companies try to group generic medicine with counterfeit medicine which is wrong because most of the medicine we use in this country is generic, anyway. In brief, counterfeit medicines are those drugs that are deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with regard to identity or source. Generic medicine or generic drugs, on the other hand, is a legitimately produced medicine. That is the same as the original brand name product. It contains the same active ingredients but it is not made by the same companies that first developed, marketed and often patented the drug. So, generic medicine is not in anyway any different from the original medicine, only that they are cheaper and more accessible to developing countries like ours. Regarding exactly how the East African Countries make sure that medicine move across the borders without being taken as counterfeit medicine, what we have agreed at least in Kenya is that all the medicines that enter the public domain must be embossed with the insignia of the Kenyan Government up to the drug level. On the issue of medicine entering Kenya, we are now in the process of making sure that all that medicine has some identifiable bar coding which cannot be broken into to make sure that this medicine is bona fide medicine. We are encouraging our neighbours in East Africa to join us in this venture so that we are all safe from untoward drugs. I have just come from a meeting in Kigali last week where we discussed some of these measures. I hope as the health secretariat in the community gets strengthened, we shall all be reading from the same page. Thank you."
}