Half of the pharmaceutical drugs sold in Africa are fake.

This grim reality is causing deaths of thousands of people annually in the continent with fake antimalarial drugs identified as the main cause of deaths.

In an attempt to root out fake medicines from the market, the World Health Organization together with Interpol have put in place strong alliances among law enforcers across borders to tackle the rising pharmaceutical counterfeiting.

A five day conference bringing together the Kenya police and Interpol is being held in Nairobi to address this menace as well as tackle intellectual property crimes including piracy head on.

The conference was told that the manufacture and distribution of the fake commodities is causing governments across the globe losses in revenue running into billions of shillings.

But even as Interpol and other police agencies struggle to lock out counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs from the market, the question of a policy in Kenya to tackle the issue once and for all awaits legislation on just where to draw the line between fake and genuine products to prevent further deaths.