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The company that makes Grand-Pa headache powder is recalling some batches of the medicine in South Africa after police discovered a counterfeit product.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) SA's general manager of Health Care, David Thomas, said the police notified the company of fake versions of the product being made in a busted illegal factory in Oranjeville, Free State.
Thomas said the company had seen "isolated pockets" of the counterfeit Grand-Pa appearing in the Vaal area, Tembisa and Naboomspruit in Limpopo.
"It's not a widespread thing but one incident is too many, and we had to react," Thomas said. He said while consumers should be on the look-out for the recalled products, there was also "no need to panic".
Counterfeit products not tested
The company said in a statement earlier in the day that the counterfeit products had not been subjected to safety and quality checks that are typical for genuine Grand-Pa powders.
The counterfeit products are being sold as Grand-Pa Powders, 38-count, and have batch numbers 309339 and 314020.
The counterfeit powder was being sold in packaging with subtle differences from the genuine product. The fakes had spelling errors in the text on the package. For example, the word "koors" is misspelled "kors".
The company said it was testing the counterfeit powder at its laboratories in the UK to establish the contents of the fake product.
Not a total recall
GSK said it was voluntarily recalling its own products bearing those batch numbers in an effort to protect consumers. Thomas emphasised this was not a total recall and was restricted to only the specific batch numbers being used by fraudsters.
"This is not a total brand recall, it is just those [bearing the] two batch numbers," Thomas said.
The company asked consumers who suspect they have fake Grand-Pa or with queries to call its help line, 0800-118274.
(Sapa, July 2012)
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