Antimalarial Drug Quality in the Most Severely Malarious Parts of Africa – A Six Country Study
Open accessAbstract
A range of antimalarial drugs were procured from private pharmacies in urban and peri-urban areas in the major cities of six African countries, situated in the part of that continent and the world that is most highly endemic for malaria. Semi-quantitative thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and dissolution testing were used to measure active pharmaceutical ingredient content against internationally acceptable standards. 35% of all samples tested failed either or both tests, and were substandard. Further, 33% of treatments collected were artemisinin monotherapies, most of which (78%) were manufactured in disobservance of an appeal by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to withdraw these clinically inappropriate medicines from the market. The high persistence of substandard drugs and clinically inappropriate artemisinin monotherapies in the private sector risks patient safety and, through drug resistance, places the future of malaria treatment at risk globally.
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The majority of antimalarial drugs sold in Africa are either ineffective or accelerate malarial parasite resistance owing to the distribution of counterfeit drugs.
“The majority of antimalarial drugs sold in Africa are either ineffective or accelerate malarial parasite resistance owing to the distribution of counterfeit drugs (9,43).”
From Into the Eye of the Cytokine Storm (2012) · cites this paper as [9]
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Into the Eye of the Cytokine Storm
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- Authors
- Bate, R., Coticelli, P., Tren, R., & Attaran, A.
- Affiliations
- American Enterprise Institute (US)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Coticelli, Philip
- ORCID
- Bate, Roger
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2008-05-07
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- e2132
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2324203
- OpenAlex
- W2059256532
- Cited by
- 161
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 15.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Pharmaceutical Quality and Counterfeiting
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Malaria Research and Control
- Keywords
- antimalarial drugs, substandard medicines, artemisinin monotherapy, drug quality, private pharmacies, drug resistance, active pharmaceutical ingredient content
- MeSH terms
- Antimalarials, Humans, Malaria, Pharmacies, Urban Population, World Health Organization, Africa South of the Sahara
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