Trafficking illicit medical products in Burkina Faso and Guinea

To shrink the market for illicit medical products, issues driving their demand must be addressed.

West Africa has become a hotspot for the trafficking of medical products, with estimations that the illicit market makes up to 80% of medical products in Burkina Faso and Guinea, the two case studies of this brief. Despite its enormous scale, there are gaps in knowledge that this brief seeks to address by providing a qualitative analysis of the market’s key characteristics and enablers (corruption and insecurity), and an assessment of national and regional responses.

This policy brief is based on a research report, Bad pharma: trafficking illicit medical products in West Africa.

About the authors

Flore Berger is an analyst in the Observatory of Illicit Economies in West Africa at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), with a geographic focus on Mali and Burkina Faso.

Mouhamadou Kane is an analyst in the Observatory of Illicit Economies in West Africa at GI-TOC, with a geographic focus on Senegal and Guinea.

Image: © Alamy Stock Photo