Counterfeit drugs are putting the whole world at risk

In December 2014, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri District saw an outbreak of what appeared to be meningitis. By August, more than 1,000 people had been admitted to clinics, and health workers knew there was something else afoot.What had at first seemed to be neck stiffness—a common symptom of meningitis—proved to be muscle spasms caused by a mislabeled medicine. An investigation, reported this month in The Lancet Global Health revealed that people had been purchasing tablets they thought were diazepam (the generic name for Valium). But the tablets actually contained an antipsychotic drug called haloperidol, which can prompt involuntary contractions in the face, neck, and arms that are alarming, though rarely life threatening. It’s likely that these medicines had been deliberately falsified, the authors concluded.