Across Africa, cancer medications have been found to be substandard or counterfeit. That means people are being given medicine that may not work, or that could even cause them harm.
Archived version: archive.is/newest/https://…/a-73062221
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
hellinkilla@hexbear.net 23 hours ago
I know it’s just a third party photo on a summary article but the photographer “Barbara Debout/AFP/Getty Images” is seriously fucked in the head. The idea that anyone would ever break up a bunch of blister packs of random medications and put them in a colander like some sort of chronic disease salad is insane. For context, we see the dark skin and bold printed clothing. Is there any explanation for this which isn’t wildly racist?
There’s a perfect non-racist image included in the actual paper:
Image
SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
She is/was a Central African Republic correspondant. A lot of her photos are going to have Africans in them.
I dug a bit: CAFRICA-HEALTH-POVERTY Stephen Hyppolite Liosso Pivara Bembe, a former medical student who was never able to finish his studies, sifts though medicines in the small street pharmacy he owns in Bangui, on 21 February 2022. Informal pharmacies are vital for the poorest population of this Central African country, the second least developed in the world according to the UN and in civil war for 10 years. But there is a flip side to the coin: proliferation of poor quality or fake drugs, resistance to antibiotics, illegal practice of medicine. (Photo by Barbara DEBOUT / AFP) (Photo by BARBARA DEBOUT/AFP via Getty Images)
She has quite a few of Stephen doing tasks in his Pharmacy.
hellinkilla@hexbear.net 19 hours ago
I commend your web search skills!
With that info we can post a better photo taken within moments of the above:
Image
Which shows medications being stored in a normal way in boxes which are neatly stacked and organized on shelves.
The med salad colander thing still completely inexplicable. It doesn’t play any role in the workflow according to the photos I saw. It is a chaotic and dangerous way of storing medication. I hypothesize it is staged for the benefit of the photographer, likely with some art direction from her.