“Indian Pharmaceutical Giants” Influencing Opioid Crisis in West Africa- Leaving Hundreds to Death

For decades, a good chunk of West African countries – including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Nigeria and Ivory coast – has been gripped by an opioid-abuse epidemic that has devastated families, killed thousands and strained an already overburdened healthcare system with increasing poverty and population with lack of employment opportunities. Once primarily a route for the trade of illicit drugs that linked Latin America to Europe, West Africa has become one of the primary consumers of these painkillers.

Broadly, more than 30% of West African population specially women and children has been found to use tramadol and codeine, making these prescription opioids among the most widely abused substances in the region. Another notoriously dangerous opioid mix is ‘Kush’ – a synthetic drug which commonly contains cannabinoids and synthetic opioids like “Nitazenes”, which can at times be even more powerful than “Fentanyl”. The state of drug abuse has been so brutal that in 2024 leaders of both Sierra Leone and Liberia, in an unprecedented decision, declared national emergencies over drug use. Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority also said last year that the abuse of the opioid tapentadol, known on the street as “Red”, was on the rise, it has eventually devastated these countries with more Crime, Killings and Uneducated Youth with Physical and Mental health issues.

India has exported more than 1,400 consignments of “Tapentadol”, worth almost USD $130 million, to several countries in the region, including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Benin, Senegal and Nigeria being the largest supplier and deteriorator of the West African population.

Lupin, Ajanta, Sun and Cipla have been lately nominated and questioned but no legal action has been taken still to stop the Giant Illegal Market of “Drug Trafficking”. A BBC report released in February published a deep look at one Indian company, Aveo Pharmaceuticals, based in Mumbai, which manufactured a drug they called “Tafrodol” – a particularly addictive and deadly combination of tapentadol, an opioid painkiller, and carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant. It isn’t legal anywhere in the world, including India or Ghana (the main point of shipment deliveries). Yet it was exported in vast quantities by Aveo Pharmaceuticals using regulatory loopholes.

Famous public health activist and co-author of “Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India” Dinesh Thakur, says the problem lies in regulatory gaps and a lack of transparency between countries, it should be investigated who is earning through this and turning it into White Money.