ArticleThe Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy2019
A random survey of the prevalence of falsified and substandard antibiotics in the Lao PDR.
Article in The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 15 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- 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
- Quality of medicines for life-threatening pregnancy complications in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.PloS one · 2020Pooled it
- Packaging and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Analysis of Amoxicillin Capsules from Nablus, Palestine.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2025Article
- Prevalence of substandard, falsified, unlicensed and unregistered medicine and its associated factors in Africa: a systematic review.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2024Review
- Low Ciprofloxacin Concentrations Select Multidrug-Resistant Mutants Overproducing Efflux Pumps in Clinical Isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Microbiology spectrum · 2022Article
- Investigation of the Quality of the 12 Most-Used Antibiotics Available in Retail Private Pharmacies in Rwanda.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
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- Antimicrobial use and resistance data in human and animal sectors in the Lao PDR: evidence to inform policy.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- Small-scale dissolution test screening tool to select potentially substandard and falsified (SF) medicines requiring full pharmacopoeial analysis.Scientific reports · 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
- Comparative Quality Evaluation of Selected Brands of Cefuroxime Axetil Tablets Marketed in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2021Article
- Potency of commonly retailed antibiotics in pharmacies found in Adama, Oromia regional state, Ethiopia.PloS one · 2021Article
- Development and selection of low-level multi-drug resistance over an extended range of sub-inhibitory ciprofloxacin concentrations in Escherichia coli.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Cost savings of paper analytical devices (PADs) to detect substandard and falsified antibiotics: Kenya case study.Medicine access @ point of careArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedEditor's note.2022
Authors and funding
11 authors at 5 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesIn 2012, a stratified random survey, using mystery shoppers, was conducted to investigate the availability and quality of antibiotics sold to patients in the private sector in five southern provinces of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos).
methodsA total of 147 outlets were sampled in 10 districts. The active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) content measurements for 909 samples, including nine APIs (amoxicillin, ampicillin, ceftriaxone, ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, ofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole, tetracycline and trimethoprim), were determined using HPLC.
resultsAll the analysed samples contained the stated API and we found no evidence for falsification. All except one sample had all the units tested with %API values between 75% and 125% of the content stated on the label. However, we identified the presence of substandard antibiotics: 19.6% (201/1025) of samples had their units outside the 90%-110% content of the label claim and 60.2% (617/1025) of the samples had units outside of the International Pharmacopoeia uniformity of content limit range. Amoxicillin had a high number of samples [67.1% (151)] with units above the limit range, followed by ciprofloxacin [58.8% (10)] and ofloxacin [57.4% (39)]. Ceftriaxone, trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole had the highest number of samples with low API content: 57.1% (4), 51.6% (64) and 34.7% (43), respectively. Significant differences in %API were found between stated countries of manufacture and stated manufacturers.
conclusionsWith the global threat of antimicrobial resistance to patient outcomes, greater understanding of the role of poor-quality antibiotics is needed. Substandard antibiotics will have reduced therapeutic efficacy, impacting public health and control of bacterial infections.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.