Exhibiting an Indian pharmaceutical company that stimulates an opioid crisis of Western Africa

The Indian pharmaceutical company produces unlicensed, highly dependent opioids and illegally exports them to West Africa, where they manage the main public health crisis in countries, including Ghana, Nigeria and Cote D’Ardira, the BBC investigation revealed.

Aveo Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Mumbai, makes a series of tablets that go under different brands and are packed so that they look like legitimate drugs. But everyone contains the same harmful mixture of ingredients: tapentadol, powerful opioid and carisoprodol, muscle relaxant, so it is banned in Europe.

This drug combination is not licensed to use nowhere in the world and can cause difficulty breathing and seizures. An overdose can kill. Despite the risks, these opioids are popular as street drugs in many West African countries, as they are so cheap and widely available.

BBC World Service found their packages, marked by Aveo logo, for sale on the streets of Ganski, Nigerian and Ivoiri cities and cities.

After following the drugs to Ave’s factory in India, the BBC sent a secret operative inside the factory, posing as an African businessman who wants to supply opioids in Nigeria. Using a hidden camera, the BBC captured one of Ave’s directors, Vinod Sharma, showing the same dangerous products found by BBC on sale in West Africa.

In the secretly recorded footage, the operative says Sharmi that his plan is to sell pills to teenagers in Nigeria “who everyone loves this product”. Sharma doesn’t blink. “Okay,” he replies, before explaining that if users take two or three tablets at a time, they can “relax” and agree that they can get “high”. Towards the end of the meeting, Sharma says, “This is very harmful to health,” adding “Today, this is a job.”

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

In the city of Tamale, in the northern Gani, so many young people take illegal opioids that one of the city leaders, Alhassan Maham, created a voluntary working group of about 100 local citizens whose mission was crossed by drug dealers and take these streets from the streets.

“The drugs consume the mind of those who abuse them,” Maham says, “like a fire when kerosene is poured on it.” One addict in Tamale put it easier. The drugs, he said, “lost our lives.”

The BBC team followed the working group as they skipped motorcycles and, following the advice on drug contracts, launched an attack at one of the poorest districts of Tamale. Along the way, a young man went down in Stupor, who, according to the locals, took these drugs.

When the merchant was caught, he wore a plastic bag filled with green tablets marked by Tafrodol. The packages are imprinted with a characteristic Aveo Pharmaceuticals logo.

Not just in Tamale that Aveo -these tablets cause misery. The BBC found similar products made by Aveo, police seized elsewhere in Gani.

We also found evidence that Aveo tablets for sale on the streets of Nigeria and Cote d’Ardira, where teenagers dissolve them in an alcoholic energy drink to increase high levels.

Exporting data publicly available show that Aveo Pharmaceuticals, together with a sister company called Westfin International, delivers millions of these tablets in Ghana and other West African countries.

Nigeria, with a population of 225 million, provides the largest market for these tablets. It is estimated that about four million Nigerians abuse some form of opioid, according to the Nigerian National Office for Statistics.

The chairman of the Nigerian drug and law implementation agencies (NDLEA), General Brig Mohammed Buba Marwa, told the BBC, opioids are “devastating to our young people, our families, in every community in Nigeria.”

In 2018, after the investigation of the BBC Africa on the sale of opioids as street drugs, the Nigerian authorities tried to attract themselves to a widely abused opioid paink against tramadol pain.

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

Shortly after this action, Aveo Pharmaceuticals began exporting a new tablet based on tapantadol, an even stronger opioid, mixed with a carisoprodol, which is a muscle muscle.

Western Africa officials warn that opioid exporters seem to use these new combined tablets as a replacement for tramadol and avoid action.

At the Aveo factory there were cardboard of combined drugs stacked on top of each other, almost ceiling. On his desk, Vinod Sharma kicked the package after a packet of cocktail tablets of tapentadol-carisoprodol that the company sells under a series of names, including Tafrodol, most popular, as well as Timeking and Super Royal-225.

Said the BBC’s secret team that “scientists” who work in his factory could combine different medicines to “make a new product.”

See Indian Opioid Kings from the BBC Eye Investigation on player or, if you are out of the UK, watch out YouTube.

Aveo’s new product is even more dangerous than a tramadol he replaced. According to Dr. Lekhashu Shukla, Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bengalur, India, tapentadol “gives opioid effects”, including a very deep sleep.

“It could be deep enough that people don’t breathe, and that leads to drug overdose,” he explained. “And with that, you give another agent, Carisoprodol, which also gives a very deep sleep, relaxation. It sounds like a very dangerous combination.”

Carisoprodol is banned in Europe because it is addicted. It was approved for use in the US, but only for short periods up to three weeks. The symptoms of withdrawal include anxiety, insomnia and hallucinations.

When mixed with tapentadol, the withdrawal is more “stricter” compared to regular opioids, said Dr. Shukla. “It’s a pretty painful experience.”

He said he did not know about clinical trials about the effectiveness of this combination. Unlike Tramadol, which is legal for use in limited doses, a cocktail tapentadol-carisoprodol “does not sound like a rational combination,” he said. “It’s not something that has a license to use in our country.”

In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot legally produce and export outstanding medicines unless these drugs fill in the imports of imports of imports. Aveo supplies tafrodol and similar products in Gani, where this combination of tapantadol and carisoprodol, according to Gana’s National drug conduct, is unlicensed and illegal. With the arrival of Tafrodol in Ghana, Aveo violates the Indian law.

These allegations are put in the wine of Sharmi and Aveo Pharmaceuticals. They didn’t answer.

The Indian drug regulator, CDSCO, told us that the Indian government recognizes its responsibility for global public health and that it is dedicated to ensuring that India has a responsible and strong pharmaceutical regulatory system.

It was added that export from India to other countries was closely monitored and that the tightened regulation was recently strictly implemented. He also called imports of imports to support India’s efforts, ensuring that they have similar strong regulatory systems.

CDSCO stated that he took over the issue with other countries, including those in West Africa, and is dedicated to working with them to prevent injustice. The regulator said he would immediately take measures against any pharmaceutical company involved in abuse.

Aveo is not the only Indian company that produces and exports the unlicensed opioids. Publicly available export data suggest that other pharmaceutical companies produce similar products, and drugs with different branding are widely available throughout Western Africa.

These manufacturers are damaging to the reputation of the fast -growing pharmaceutical industry industry, which makes high quality generic drugs where millions of people around the world depend on the products of vaccines that have saved millions of lives. The export of the industry is worth at least $ 28 billion (£ 22 billion) per year.

Talking about his meeting with Sharma, the BBC, this secret operative, whose identity must remain hidden for his safety, says: “Nigeric journalists report on this opioid crisis for over 20 years, but in the end, I was face to face … With one of one of the men at the root of the African opioid crisis, one of the men who produce it and deliver it to our countries in our countries. “

Return to Tamale, Gana, Tim BBC followed a local working group in a last attack that appeared even more Ave’s Tafrodol. That evening they gathered at a local park to burn the drugs they seized.

“We burn him out in the open air to see everyone,” Zickay said, one of the leaders, because the packages were drowning in gasoline and setting up, sending a signal to the sellers and suppliers: If they get you, they will burn your drug. “

But even while the flames destroyed several hundred Tafrodol packages, “sellers and suppliers” at the top of this chain, thousands of kilometers in India, they threw out millions of millions – and enriched themselves for profit from misery.