By Pete Kingsley, University of Edinburgh
With the death of Nigeria's Dora Akunyili, a passionate campaigner against falsified and substandard medicines, the fight against fake drugs in Africa just got more difficult. Akunyili was director-general of the country's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) from 2001 to 2009. During her tenure, she led high-profile campaigns against ineffective drugs in the Nigerian marketplace, winning international acclaim and numerous accolades in the process. Yet despite Akunyili and other campaigners building widespread attention and momentum about fake and substandard medicines, they remain a major concern in Nigeria, and indeed much of the developing world.
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