The Killer or the Cure: Medicine Regulation in Cameroon in an Attempt to Wipe Out the Continuous Sale of Fakes

Abstract

Pharmaceutical drugs and traditional medicines plow the towns of Cameroon and are coming from different sources. Medicine regulation is covered by laws, decrees, orders etc., requiring authorisation in production, distribution, importation and marketing. The recent COVID-19 pandemic that has affected the entire world has come in with more health regulatory challenges in different parts of the world and Cameroon in particular. There has been a proliferation of different pharmaceutical and traditional drugs that have been supposedly said to cure the COVID 19 virus which in fact are fake. The result is that quacks have taken advantage of the pandemic to make false medicine prescription as well as the production of fake hydrochloroquine that has been tested by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to be part of the effective drugs that help in the cure of the virus. This paper thus seeks to establish the effectiveness of regulatory mechanisms in combatting dealings in fake medicines while drawing attention to regulatory insights on drug legislation. While making use of an in-depth content analysis and critical evaluation of primary and secondary data, this paper argues that the regulatory mechanism to combat dealings in fake medicines is weak and more stringent measures in relation to the observance of drug legislation is required. It is thus recommended that special tasks force be set up in every city to flush out unauthorised medicine dealers and also persecution of defaulters will go a long way to fight this ill.