Donated drugs stolen and sold across Africa

American and British experts bought malaria medicines randomly from private pharmacies in 11 African cities.

They found 6.5 per cent were supposed to have been donated to government hospitals and clinics. The study will be published today in the journal Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine.

The finding was particularly strong in artemesinin combination drugs, the best available malaria drugs.

In 2007, they found about 15 per cent of such donated drugs had been stolen for resale. This year, it was nearly 30 per cent.

According to an audit last year by the US President's Malaria Initiative, about $640,000 of medicines sent to Angola vanished from airports and the government's medicines warehouse.

Experts said donated drugs regularly disappear in Africa.

"The study is important because it clearly documents something that we need to study more closely," said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, a director at Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Roger Bate, a fellow at American Enterprise Institute found donated drugs originally meant for Nigeria on sale in Kenya, drugs with "Not for Sale" stamped on them, and drugs packaged in the wrong local language, which suggests they were stolen from aid deliveries.