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Jakarta burdened by donated drugs

This picture released yesterday by aid agency Pharmaciens Sans Frontieres shows medicine donated by various foreign countries in storage in Banda Aceh to aid victims of a slew of disasters that struck Indonesia. PHOTO: AFP

Tonnes of drugs and medical equipment that have poured into Indonesia in the wake of a slew of major disasters are often damaged, out of date and unusable, aid workers said.

Donors jumped into action following disasters ranging from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 168,000 people in Aceh Province, to a massive earthquake on Java in May that claimed some 5,800 lives.

But according to aid agency Pharmaciens Sans Frontihres (PSF), or Pharmacists Without Borders, donated medicines have created more headaches for the government than benefits for the victims.

"It's a second tsunami, a huge wave of drugs donations that authorities are totally unable to handle," PSF pharmacist Laurence Boiron said, referring to some 600 tonnes of expired, damaged or inappropriate medicine pouring into Aceh.

Some 200 tonnes of unusable drugs taken from Nias Island, hit by a deadly earthquake in March last year, were to be incinerated yesterday at a cement factory in Bogor, south of Jakarta.

Early this month, 150 tonnes of drugs donated to Aceh were burned and PSF planned to destroy another 50 tonnes of donations made to victims of the May 27 Yogyakarta earthquake.

At Banda Aceh's Zainoel Abidin hospital, parcels from around the world cram the corridors of the once tsunami-devastated building and chief pharmacist Abu Saadi is puzzled.

"We are all victims of the tsunami and do thank the international community for its generous help," Saadi said. "But all these drugs take so much space. We would have rather had quality than quantity."

The WHO has established strict guidelines for donated drugs. They must comply with the WHO official list of approved medicine, be in use in the receiving country and have, upon arrival, a remaining shelf life of at least one year.

But the standards are frequently eschewed. In Aceh, 70 percent of donated drugs were labeled in a foreign language other than English or Indonesian, contrary to another WHO guideline.

Banda Aceh hospital's pharmacist Saadi recalled receiving cases of injectable Pantozol, a drug used to treat gastritis.

"But in Indonesia we only use it in tablets, so doctors had never seen these. We didn't use them in fear of killing patients," he said.

The eventual cost of dealing with the drugs can easily outstrip their usefulness.

"With a cost of US$250 per tonne to incinerate, we could [instead] be building a health center," said Astrid Kartika, a health adviser for the UN Development Program, which was organizing and footing the bill for yesterday's incineration.

The drugs also pose a threat to the environment if stored over a long period of time -- and many end up fueling the local black market, experts said.
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