Exposing an Indian pharma firm fuelling West Africa’s opioid crisis

Investigations in the BBC revealed the public health crisis in countries including Ghana, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire, BBC in El -Ayoun revealed that the Indian pharmaceutical company is manufacturing unlicensed and very destructive Aphondies and illegally exporting them to West Africa where they lead a major health crisis Public in countries including Ghana, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire.

Aveo Pharmaceuticals, based in Mumbai, is made by a group of grains that are subject to different commercial names and are filled to look like legitimate medications. But they all contain the same harmful mixture of ingredients: TAPENTADOL, strong philosophys, and carissoprodol, which is very comfortable in the muscles, was addicted in Europe.

This combination of drugs is not licensed to use anywhere in the world and can cause breathing difficulties and seizures. An overdose can be killed. Despite the risks, these opiates are popular like drugs in the streets in many West African countries, because they are very cheap and widely available.

BBC World service found bundles of them, carrying the Aveo Logo brand, for sale in the streets of Ghanaian, Nigerian and Idori cities.

After tracing the drugs to the Avio Factory in India, the BBC sent a secret work inside the factory, pretending as an African businessman looking to provide opiates to Nigeria. Using a hidden camera, the British Broadcasting Corporation photographed one of the managers of Aveo, Vinod Sharma, which shows the same dangerous products that BBC found for sale throughout West Africa.

In the shots recorded secretly, the operative Sherma tells that his plan is to sell birth control pills to adolescents in Nigeria “who love this product.” Sharma does not flounder. “Well,” he answered, before explaining that if users take two or three pills at one time, they can “relax” and agree that they can get “high”. “This is very harmful to health,” said Sharma, says “This is very harmful to health,” adding, “at the present time, this is a job.

It is a work that destroys health and destroys the potential of millions of young people across West Africa.

In the city of Tamali, in northern Ghana, many young people are dealing with illegal AVIs so that one of the city’s heads, Hassan Maham, established a voluntary work group that includes about 100 local citizens who are their mission in raiding drug dealers and taking these pills outside the streets.

“The drug consumes rationality of those who abuse them, such as burning the fire when the kerosene is poured on it,” said Mawham. One addicted to Tamali simply put it. He said that the drug “wasted our lives.”

The BBC team continued the work division while jumping into motorcycles, and after advice on a drug deal, a raid was launched in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Tamali. On the way who passed a young man who retreated in astonishment, according to the local population, they took these medications.

When the merchant was arrested, he was carrying a plastic bag filled with green grains bearing the Tafrodol brand. The packages were sealed with the distinctive logo of AVEO.

Not only in Tamali that birth control pills cause misery. The British Broadcasting Corporation found similar products, made by Affio, by the police elsewhere in Ghana.

We also found evidence that birth control pills are offered for sale in the streets of Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire, where adolescents dissolve in the alcoholic energy drink to increase high.

The export data available to the public shows that Aveo Pharmaceuticals, along with a sister company called Westfin International, ships millions of these tablets to Ghana and other West African countries.

Nigeria, with a population of 225 million people, provides the largest market for these pills. Estimates indicate that about four million Nigerians misuse a form of opium, according to the Nigerian National Statistical Office.

“Our youth and our families are destroying, in every society in Nigeria,” said NDLEA, head of Nigeria Performance and Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

In 2018, following an investigation into the BBC Africa in selling opioids as drugs in the streets, the Nigerian authorities tried to obtain a fist on the Avenue Avenue Avenue on a large scale called Tramadol.

The government banned the sale of tramadol without a prescription, imposed strict borders on the maximum dose, and left on illegal pill imports. At the same time, the Indian authorities have tightened export regulations on Tramadol.

Shortly after this repression, Aveo Pharmaceuticals began to export new pill dependent on TAPENTADOL, stronger, mixed, mixed with carisoprodol that repeats the muscles.

Western African officials warn that the exporters of opioids seem to use these new pills as a substitute for tramadol and to evade the campaign.

At the Avio Factory, there were cartons from the treated drugs stacked on top of each other, almost high ceiling. On his office, Vinod Sharma put a package after a package of TainTadol-Carisoprodol pills that the company markets under a set of names including Tafrodol, the most popular, as well as timing and Super Royal-225.

“The scientists” who work in its factory can combine different medications “to create a new product.”

Opion kings in India watched the BBC investigations iplayer Or, if you are outside the United Kingdom, witness YouTube.

The new Aveo product is more dangerous than the tramadol that replaced it. According to Dr. Lekhankla Chocolate, Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurology in Bangaluru, India, Tabmentol “gives the effects of opium” including very deep sleep.

“It may be deep enough because people do not breathe, and this leads to an overdose of the drug,” he explained. “However, you give another agent, Carisoprodol, which also gives a very deep sleep, relaxation. It seems very dangerous.”

Carisoprodol is banned in Europe because it is addiction. It is approved for use in the United States, but for short periods of up to three weeks. Symptoms of withdrawal include anxiety, insomnia and hallucinations.

Dr. Chocolate said that withdrawal when mixed with TAPENTADOL is withdrawing “more severe” compared to regular Avions. “It is a somewhat painful experience.”

He said he was aware of any clinical experiences on the effectiveness of this mix. Unlike Tradadol, which is legal for use in limited doses, TAPENTADOL-CARISOPRODOL “does not seem to be a rational mix.” “This is not something licensed to use in our country.”

In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot manufacture and export unlicensed drugs legally unless these drugs meet the standards of the imported country. Aveo ships Tafrodol and similar products to Ghana, where this mix is ​​considered TAPENTADOL and Carisoprodol, according to the National Drug Enforcement Agency in Ghana, unlicensed and illegal. By charging Tafrodol to Ghana, Aveo breaks the Indian law.

We put these allegations in Vinod Sharma and Aveo Pharmaceuticals. They did not want.

The Indian drug organizer, CDSCO, told us that the Indian government is aware of its responsibility towards global public health and is committed to ensuring that India has a strong and strong regulatory system.

He added that exports from India to other countries are closely monitored and that this recent organization is strictly applied. He also called on importing countries to support India’s efforts by ensuring that they have strong organizational systems.

CDSCO reported that she had taken it with other countries, including those in West Africa, and committed to work with them to prevent violations. The organizer said he would take immediate measures against any pharmaceutical company involved in misconduct.

Avio is not the only Indian company to export unlicensed opium. The export data available to the public indicates the manufacture of other pharmaceutical companies that make similar products, and drugs with different brands are widely available throughout West Africa.

These manufacturers hurt the reputation of the rapidly growing drug industry in India, which makes high -quality general drugs that millions of people depend on all over the world and the manufacture of vaccines that saved millions of lives. The value of industry exports is at least $ 28 billion (22 billion pounds) annually.

Speaking of his meeting with Sharma, the BBC secret worker, whose identity should remain hidden for his safety: “Nigerian journalists reported this opioid crisis for more than 20 years but finally, I was face to face … with one Of the men in the root of the Avenue crisis in Africa, one of the men who makes this product and ships it in our countries through the container’s load. Simply as a job.

Returning to Tamale, Ghana, the BBC followed the local workplace in a recent raid that appeared more than Tafrodol in Aveo. In that evening, they gathered in a local park to burn the drugs they seized.

Zikai, one of the leaders, said the beams were photographed in gasoline and ignited you, you will burn drugs.

But even when the fire destroyed a few hundred beams of Tafrodol, “sellers and suppliers” at the top of this series, thousands of miles away in India, were taking off millions of others – and singing misery profits.