ArticleThe American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene2017
Low Prevalence of Substandard and Falsified Antimalarial and Antibiotic Medicines in Public and Faith-Based Health Facilities of Southern Malawi.
Article in The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Characterizing Medicine Quality by Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Levels: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis across Low- and Middle-Income Countries.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2022Pooled it
- Prevalence and Estimated Economic Burden of Substandard and Falsified Medicines in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.JAMA network open · 2018Pooled it
- The role of faith-based organizations in the pharmaceutical systems of low-and-middle-income countries - A scoping review.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Animal husbandry and environmental conditions are associated with cefotaxime-resistant Escherichia coli in yard soil in peri-urban Malawi.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Substandard antibiotics and their clinical outcomes among hospitalized patients in southern Malawi: a pilot study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Relationship between Prices and Quality of Essential Medicines from Different Manufacturers Collected in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2024Article
- Suspected poor-quality medicines in Kenya: a retrospective descriptive study of medicine quality-related complaints reports in Kenya's pharmacovigilance database.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Quality of Essential Medicines from Different Sources in Enugu and Anambra, Nigeria.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2024Article
- Prevalence of substandard, falsified, unlicensed and unregistered medicine and its associated factors in Africa: a systematic review.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2024Review
- Prevalence of Poor Quality Ciprofloxacin and Metronidazole Tablets in Three Cities in Cameroon.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2023Article
- Usefulness of medicine screening tools in the frame of pharmaceutical post-marketing surveillance.PloS one · 2023Article
- Comparing the return on investment of technologies to detect substandard and falsified amoxicillin: A Kenya case study.PloS one · 2023Article
- Surveillance for substandard and falsified medicines by local faith-based organizations in 13 low- and middle-income countries using the GPHF Minilab.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Investigation of the Quality of the 12 Most-Used Antibiotics Available in Retail Private Pharmacies in Rwanda.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Development of single- and multiplex immunoassays for rapid detection and quantitation of amodiaquine in ACT drugs and rat serum.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2022Article
- Emerging Antimicrobial Drug Resistance in Africa and Latin America: Search for Reasons.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2022Review
- Burden of and factors associated with poor quality antibiotic, antimalarial, antihypertensive and antidiabetic medicines in Malawi.PloS one · 2022Article
- Authentication of Antibiotics Using Portable Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Multivariate Data Analysis.Applied spectroscopy · 2021Article
- Clarification of the internal structure and factors of poor dissolution of substandard roxithromycin tablets by near-infrared chemical imaging.International journal of pharmaceutics · 2021Article
- Rapid quantification of artemisinin derivatives in antimalarial drugs with dipstick immunoassays.Journal of pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
AbstractSubstandard and falsified antimalarial and antibiotic medicines represent a serious problem for public health, especially in low- and middle-income countries. However, information on the prevalence of poor-quality medicines is limited. In the present study, samples of six antimalarial and six antibiotic medicines were collected from 31 health facilities and drug outlets in southern Malawi. Random sampling was used in the selection of health facilities. For sample collection, an overt approach was used in licensed facilities, and a mystery shopper approach in nonlicensed outlets. One hundred and fifty-five samples were analyzed by visual and physical examination and by rapid prescreening tests, that is, disintegration testing and thin-layer chromatography using the GPHF-Minilab. Fifty-six of the samples were analyzed according to pharmacopeial monographs in a World Health Organization-prequalified quality control laboratory. Seven out-of-specification medicines were identified. One sample was classified as falsified, lacking the declared active ingredients, and containing other active ingredients instead. Three samples were classified as substandard with extreme deviations from the pharmacopeial standards, and three further samples as substandard with nonextreme deviations. Of the substandard medicines, three failed in dissolution testing, two in the assay for the content of the active pharmaceutical ingredient, and one failed in both dissolution testing and assay. Six of the seven out-of-specification medicines were from private facilities. Only one out-of-specification medicine was found within the samples from public and faith-based health facilities. Although the observed presence of substandard and falsified medicines in Malawi requires action, their low prevalence in public and faith-based health facilities is encouraging.
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