BBC EYE Investigations
BBC World Service
Bbc
An Indian pharmaceutical company makes opioids without license and very addictive and illegally exports them to West Africa where they lead a major public health crisis in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire, revealed an investigation into the BBC Eye.
The Aveo Pharmaceuticals, based in Mumbai, manufactures a range of pills that pass under different brands and are packed to look like legitimate medications. But all contain the same harmful mixture of ingredients: tapentadol, a powerful opioid and carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant so addictive that it is prohibited in Europe.
This combination of drugs is not allowed to be used anywhere in the world and can cause respiratory difficulties and crises. An overdose can kill. Despite the risks, these opioids are popular as street drugs in many West African countries because they are so cheap and widely available.
The BBC World Service found packages, marked with the Aveo logo, for sale in the streets of Ghanaian, Nigerian and Ivorian cities.
After retraced drugs at the Aveo factory in India, the BBC sent an infiltration agent inside the factory, posing as an African businessman seeking to provide opioids to Nigeria . Using a hidden camera, the BBC filmed one of the AVEO directors, Vinod Sharma, showing the same dangerous products as the BBC found for sale through West Africa.
In the secretly recorded images, the operator tells Sharma that his plan is to sell the pills to adolescents in Nigeria “who love this product”. Sharma does not braid. “Okay,” he replied, before explaining that if users take two or three pills at a time, they can “relax” and agree that they can become “high”. Towards the end of the meeting, Sharma says: “It is very harmful to health,” adding “these days, it’s a matter”.
Secretly turned, Vinod Sharma said that the Aveo cocktail medication was “very harmful”, adding “it’s a business”.
It is a company that damages health and destroys the potential of millions of young people across West Africa.
In the city of Tamale, in northern Ghana, so many young people take illegal opioids that one of the city leaders, Alhassan Maham, created a voluntary working group of around 100 local citizens whose mission is to Do a descent and take these pills and take these pills and take these pills and take these pills and take these pills out of the streets.
“Drugs consume the mental health of those who abuse them,” says Maham, “like a fire burns when kerosene is poured on it.” A drug addict in Tamale said even more simply. The drugs, he said, “wasted our lives”.
The BBC team followed the working group as it was heading for motorcycles and, after an opinion on a drug agreement, launched a raid in one of the poorest districts of Tamale. On the way, they exceeded a young man collapsed in a stupor who, according to the inhabitants, had taken these drugs.
Tamale’s working group thinks that this man had taken Tafrodol, which was found in the raid
When the dealer was caught, he wore a plastic bag filled with green pills labeled with Tafrodol. The packages were stamped with the distinctive logo of Aveo Pharmaceuticals.
It is not only in Tamale that the Aveo pills cause misery. The BBC found similar products, manufactured by Aveo, was seized by the police elsewhere in Ghana.
We also found evidence that the Aveo pills are for sale in the streets of Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, where adolescents dissolve them in an alcoholic energy drink to increase the top.
The export data available publicly show that AVEO Pharmaceuticals, as well as a sister company called Westfin International, ship millions of these tablets in Ghana and other West African countries.
Nigeria, with a population of 225 million inhabitants, provides the largest market for these pills. It has been estimated that around four million Nigerians abuse a form of opioid, according to the National Bureau of Nigeria Statistics.
The president of the Nigeria agency and the application of the laws of Nigeria (NDLEA), Brig Gen Mohammed Buba Marwa, the devastating “devastating of our young people, our families, told all the families, communities in Nigeria “.
Tafrodol packages with the Aveo brand were seized during the raid in Tamale, Ghana
In 2018, following an investigation into the BBC Africa Eye on the sale of opioids as street drugs, the Nigerian authorities tried to grasp a largely abused opioid pain relievers called Tramadol.
The government has prohibited the sale of tramadol without a prescription, imposed strict limits on the maximum dose and has repressed the imports of illegal pills. At the same time, the Indian authorities have tightened export regulations on tramadol.
Shortly after this repression, Aveo Pharmaceuticals began to export a new pill based on tapentadol, an even stronger opioid, mixed with muscle-relaxing carisoprodol.
West African officials warn that opioid exporters seem to use these new combined pills as a substitute for tramadol and escape repression.
In the Aveo factory, there were boxes of combined drugs stacked on each other, almost at a ceiling. On his desk, Vinod Sharma placed the package after the package of Tapentadol-Carisoprodol cocktail pills that the company markets under a range of names, including the most popular Tafrodol, as well as the shooting and the Super Royal-225.
He told the BBC infiltration team that “scientists” working in his factory could combine different drugs to “make a new product”.
Look at the opioid kings of BBC Eye Investigations on Iplayer or, if you are outside the United Kingdom, look at YouTube.
The new Aveo product is even more dangerous than the tramadol it has replaced. According to Dr. Lekhansh Shukla, deputy professor at the National Mental Health Institute and the Neuro-Sciences Sciences in Bengaluru, India, Tapentadol “gives the effects of an opioid” including very deep sleep.
“It could be deep enough for people not to breathe, which leads to a drug overdose,” he said. “And with that, you give another agent, Carisoprodol, who also gives a very deep sleep, relaxation. It looks like a very dangerous combination.”
Carisoprodol has been prohibited in Europe because it creates dependence. It is approved for use in the United States, but only for short periods of up to three weeks. Withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, insomnia and hallucinations.
Nigerian authorities store illegal drugs they have seized – mainly opioids – in a warehouse in Lagos
When mixed with tapentadol, the withdrawal is even “more serious” compared to ordinary opioids, said Dr. Shukla. “It is a fairly painful experience.”
He said he knew no clinical trial on the effectiveness of this combination. Unlike tramadol, which is legal for use in limited doses, the Tapentadol-Carisoprodol cocktail “does not look like a rational combination,” he said. “It is not something that is allowed to be used in our country.”
In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot legally manufacture and export drugs without license unless these drugs meet the standards of the importing country. Aveo ships Tafrodol and similar products to Ghana, where this combination of Tapentadol and Carisoprodol is, according to the National Agency for the Application of Medicines in Ghana, without license and illegal. By shipping the Tafrodol to Ghana, Aveo breaks Indian law.
We put these allegations at Vinod Sharma and at Aveo Pharmaceuticals. They did not respond.
The Indian drug regulator, the CDSCO, told us that the Indian government recognizes its responsibility towards global public health and has committed to ensuring that India has a responsible and solid pharmaceutical system.
He added that India exports to other countries are closely monitored and that recently tightened regulations are strictly applied. He also called important countries to support India’s efforts by ensuring that they had similar regulatory systems.
The CDSCO said it had taken the question with other countries, including those from West Africa, and is committed to working with them to prevent reprehensible acts. The regulator said he would take immediate measures against any pharmaceutical enterprise involved in a professional fault.
The Ghanaian working group has burned the drugs he seized during the raid in Tamale, including this Aveo brand Tafrodol
Aveo is not the only Indian company to manufacture and export opioids without license. Export data accessible to the public suggest that other pharmaceutical companies manufacture similar products, and drugs with different brand images are widely available throughout West Africa.
These manufacturers damage the reputation of the rapidly growing pharmaceutical industry in India, which manufactures high -quality generic drugs on which millions of people worldwide depend and manufacture vaccines that have saved millions of lives. Industry exports are worth at least $ 28 billion (22 billion pounds sterling) per year.
Speaking on his meeting with Sharma, the BBC infiltration operator, whose identity must remain hidden for his security, says: “Nigerian journalists have reported this opioid crisis for more than 20 years but ultimately, I was opposite … with one of each other men at the root of the opioid crisis of Africa, one of the men who makes this product and ships it to our countries by loading containers. Care … simply describing it as business. “
Back in Tamale, Ghana, the BBC team followed the local working group during a last raid which revealed even more of the Aveo Tafrodol. That evening, they gathered in a local park to burn the drugs they had taken.
“We burn it in an open look to everyone,” said Zickay, one of the leaders, because the packages have been sprayed on gasoline and set fire “, he therefore sends a signal to the sellers and Suppliers: if they get you, they burn your medication “.
But even if the flames destroyed a few hundred packs of Tafrodol, the “sellers and suppliers” at the top of this chain, thousands of kilometers in India, project millions more – and were enriched on the benefits of misery .
