Health leaders to meet over fake drugs crisis

Health leaders from seven African countries are meeting on Friday in Togo's capital Lomé to sign an agreement criminalising trafficking in fake drugs.

Tens of thousands of people in Africa die each year because of fake and counterfeit medication.

The representatives from Congo-Brazzaville, The Gambia, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Togo and Uganda are hoping that laws specifically targeting fake medications will do the trick.

Health activist Denis Bukenya from the Human Rights Research Documentation Centre in Uganda told BBC Newsday that existing laws could already be used to charge people importing fake drugs, but the penalties were too small to be a deterrent to criminals.