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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
Substandard anti-malarial drugs in Burkina Faso
Malaria Journal, Volume 7, Article 95, Year 2008
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Description
Background. There is concern about an increasing infiltration of markets by substandard and fake medications against life-threatening diseases in developing countries. This is particularly worrying with regard to the increasing resistance development of Plasmodium falciparum against affordable anti-malarial medications, which has led to a change to more expensive drugs in most endemic countries. Methods. A representative sample of modern anti-malarial medications from licensed (public and private pharmacies, community health workers) and illicit (market and street vendors, shops) sources has been collected in the Nouna Health District in north-western Burkina Faso in 2006. All drugs were tested for their quality with the standard procedures of the German Pharma Health Fund-Minilab. Detected low standard drugs were re-tested with European Pharmacopoeia 2.9.1 standards for disintegration and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy at the laboratory of the Heidelberg University for confirmation. Results. Overall, 86 anti-malarial drug samples were collected, of which 77 samples have been included in the final analysis. The sample consisted of 39/77 (50%) chloroquine, 10/77 (13%) pyrimethamine- sulphadoxine, 9/77 (12%) quinine, 6/77 (8%) amodiaquine, 9/77 (12%) artesunate, and 4/77 (5%) artemether-lumefantrine. 32/77 (42%) drug samples were found to be of poor quality, of which 28 samples failed the visual inspection, nine samples had substandard concentrations of the active ingredient, four samples showed poor disintegration, and one sample contained non of the stated active ingredient. The licensed and the illicit market contributed 5/47 (10.6%) and 27/30 (90.0%) samples of substandard drugs respectively. Conclusion. These findings provide further evidence for the wide-spread existence of substandard anti-malarial medications in Africa and call for strengthening of the regulatory and quality control capacity of affected countries, particularly in view of the now wider available and substantially more costly artemisinin-based combination therapies. © 2008 Tipke et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
Authors & Co-Authors
Tipke, Maike
Germany, Heidelberg
Universität Heidelberg
Diallo, Salou
Burkina Faso, Nouna
Centre de Recherche en Sante de Nouna
Coulibaly, Boubacar
Burkina Faso, Nouna
Centre de Recherche en Sante de Nouna
Störzinger, Dominic
Germany, Heidelberg
Universität Heidelberg
Hoppe-Tichy, Torsten
Germany, Heidelberg
Universität Heidelberg
Sié, Alie
Burkina Faso, Nouna
Centre de Recherche en Sante de Nouna
Müller, Olaf
Germany, Heidelberg
Universität Heidelberg
Statistics
Citations: 73
Authors: 7
Affiliations: 2
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1186/1475-2875-7-95
e-ISSN:
14752875
Study Locations
Burkina Faso