Substituting Lariam

I am taking some anti-malarial medication, just in case. Had 2 pills of my previous Lariam prescription left back home, so starting the course wasn't a problem for me. Getting more of the medicine was, at least in Finland. I would have had to pay around 100e to a private doctor for writing me the prescription and around 40e/8 pills for the medicine. And since I needed more than that I would have had to buy 2 packs, so that would have been around 180e in total. Or over 10000Rs if converted to local currency.

In Margao I went to a pharmacy that was connected to a hospital with only my empty package of Lariam. They didn't have that but instead gave me a pack of Mefloc to examine. The ingredients are the same and you didn't need any prescription. I bought two packs of four and paid a bit over 300Rs for those. That's around 5e for the same ingredients they are selling in Finland for 40e.

I can't notice the difference, no more or less side-effects than with Lariam (only some weird dreams that I kind of enjoy in a twisted way) and I still haven't got malaria so no complaining there. But to anyone googling this I can tell that from my experience, getting a substitute for Lariam in India (or Goa to be exact) was a breeze. Mefloc is basically the same 250 mg of Mefloquine Hydrochloride than Lariam, only produced locally by Aristo Pharmaceuticals.

Still, keep in mind that anti-malarial medication like Lariam or Mefloc should be started a week before arriving to the danger-zone and thusly you shouldn't count on getting the drug in India alone. Malarone can be started a day before but on longer trips will become really expensive and there's also the hassle of having to take it every day compared to the weekly dosage of Mefloquine.

But spending 7,5e instead of 180e still sounds like a wise thing to do and what comes to forged medicine, at least it isn't trying to be a cheap copy of Lariam but the same drug under a different brand name. Roche doesn't have monopoly over India it seems.