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New Delhi: The First Indo-French Workshop on “Combating Counterfeit Medicine” (23-24 June, 2015) for Police Officers, Investigators & other officers, being hosted by the Central Bureau of Investigation was inaugurated by CBI Director Anil Sinha in New Delhi.

First of its kind for Police officers, investigators & other officers from Law Enforcement agencies, this workshop is being organised in collaboration with French Embassy; Institute of Research Against Counterfeit Medicines, France; along with Central Office Against Environmental & Public Health Violations, France and Central Fight Against Harm to the Environment And Public Health (OCLAESP).

Inaugurating the Workshop, Director Sinha said that if drugs themselves are spurious, nothing can be more dangerous for human life. He said that problem of counterfeit medicines have assumed alarming proportions and there is an urgent need to fight this growing menace. According to an estimate of INTERPOL, fake medicines kill more people in a year than those who have died in the past 40 years as a result of terrorism. Large amounts of money are involved in these transnational criminal enterprises. Counterfeiting is a global problem which now has attracted due attention of people from medical profession, Drug Enforcement Agencies and Law Enforcement Agencies like Customs and Police. Counterfeiters, who run this deadly trade undercover, use sophisticated technologies and tools and are well equipped.

Sinha briefly touched upon the significant achievements of Interpol’s Medical Product Counterfeiting and Pharmaceutical Crime (MPCPC) unit which coordinated a series of transnational operations codenamed Operation Pangea resulting in impressive seizures of counterfeit medicines world over.