GA-FDD warns of fake ‘Daflon 500mg’ tablets on market

…urges importers, distributors to surrender all counterfeit products
The Government Analyst-Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD) on Monday issued a warning that Daflon 500mg tablets are being counterfeited and circulated on the local market.

According to the Department, the Daflon (micronised purified flavonoid fraction) is used to treat patients suffering from chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) – varicose vein and venous circulation disorders such as swollen legs, pain, early morning restless legs and symptoms associated with acute haemorrhage.
The GA-FDD pointed out that the “Counterfeited/fake Daflon are unable to achieve therapeutic effect for intended use because flavonoid are poorly micronised resulting in particle size greater than 2 micrometres resulting in poor stomach absorption.”
Consumers are being implored by the Head of the Department, Marlon Cole, to return the product to wholesalers and retailers and be refunded, and to report to the GA-FDD on telephone number 222-8859, any proprietor who refuses to cooperate with this mandatory recall exercise.
While the original pills are sold in a white box with blue borders and contains sixty 500mg tablets that are further divided on four silver blister packs, each containing fifteen tablets, the counterfeited/fake product is sold in a white box with no border and contains sixty 500mg tablets that are further divided on six silver with blue blister packs, each containing ten tablets.
The original product has a manufacturers’ address of France while the fake product bears a Turkey/ Ukraine manufacturers’ address.
The Food and Drug Department, while stating that criminal proceedings would be instituted against the importers of the fake or counterfeited product, said the official distributors of the original product are Massy Distributors Inc and ANSA McAL Trading Ltd.
To date, the department noted that it has seized about “twenty-four boxes x 60 tablets x 500mg of the counterfeited/fake product from several wholesaler bonds and retail pharmacies in Georgetown and in Region Three.”
The GA-FDD is now urging importers and distributors to “surrender” all of the counterfeited product immediately, or face legal proceedings.
The department is calling on importers and distributors to – with immediate effect – surrender all the fake/ counterfeited Daflon associated with the mandatory recall to be destroyed. Failure to do same will leave the department with no alternative but to initiate legal proceedings against defaulters.
Last September the GA-FDD urged consumers to make complaints against unauthentic products sold to them.
The caution was issued by the Director of the Department, during an exclusive interview with Guyana Times.