Johannesburg - The company that makes Grand-Pa headache powder on Thursday said that there is no reason for consumers to panic over batches of the medicine it has recalled.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) SA recalled some batches of the Grand-Pa in South Africa after police discovered a counterfeit product with the same batch number.
The company's general manager of healthcare, David Thomas, said the police notified the company of fake versions of the product being made in a busted illegal factory in Oranjeville in 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.
The counterfeit products are being sold as Grand-Pa Powders, 38-count, and have batch numbers 309339 and 314020.
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.
"It's not a widespread thing but one incident is too many, and we had to react," he said.
He said while consumers should be on the look-out for the recalled products, there was also "no need to panic".
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 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".
GSK said it was testing the counterfeit powder at its laboratories in the UK to establish the contents of the fake product.
The company asked consumers who suspect they have fake Grand-Pa or with queries to call its help line, 0800-118274.
- News24
- News24
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