Several children in Egypt are reported to have died after being mistakenly given fake antibiotics.
In one case a two-year-old child with a high temperature died after hospital doctors injected him with drugs that turned out to be counterfeit.
Egyptian media say more than $160m worth of fake medicines have been seized there in the past month alone – though the problem is a global one.
A recent report by the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene estimated that counterfeit medicines kill as many as 300,000 children each year.