Morning Briefing

"Low-quality and fake anti-malarial drugs flooding into markets in Asia and Africa are driving drug resistance and threatening gains made in the fight against the disease in the past decade, according to a study" conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published Monday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, Reuters reports (Kelland, 5/21). In an analysis of "27 sets of tests of antimalarial drugs purchased in Southeast Asia and Africa between 1999 and 2010," "[a]bout a third of the drug samples from both continents failed," the New York Times writes, noting, "Some were clearly criminal counterfeits, some were expired drugs that had been repackaged and some were poorly made with too little active ingredient" (McNeil, 5/21).