ArticleBulletin of the World Health Organization2020
Over-the-counter antibiotic sales in community and online pharmacies, China.
Article in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence and risk factors for antibiotic utilization in Chinese children.BMC pediatrics · 2021Pooled it
- Measuring and assessing corruption in public health systems in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review of methods.Health policy and planning · 2026Article
- Quantitative assessment of china's policies on the online sale of prescription drugs.PloS one · 2026Article
- A resource to empirically establish drug exposure records directly from untargeted metabolomics data.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Antibiotic purchasing through online pharmacies: A mystery shopper study.Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences · 2025Article
- A qualitative exploration of consumers' views and experiences toward online pharmacies: Narrative from a developing country.PloS one · 2025Article
- The good, the bad, and the ugly: Compliance of e-pharmacies serving India and Kenya with regulatory requirements and best practices.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Antimicrobial resistance: Past, present, and way forward.Indian journal of community medicine : official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine · 2024Article
- Vietnamese people's behavior and future intention to purchase medicines and functional foods on the internet: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- A confirmation of the predictive utility of the Antibiotic Use Questionnaire.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Appropriate use of antibiotics for acute respiratory infections at primary healthcare facilities in China: a nationwide cross-sectional study from 2017 to 2019.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2023Article
- National Action Plan in Antimicrobial Resistance Using Framework Analysis for China.China CDC weekly · 2023Article
- Illicit Online Pharmacies: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Sales of antibiotics without a prescription in pharmacies, 2017 and 2021, China.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2023Article
- Factors Influencing Antibiotic Consumption in Adult Population of Kazakhstan.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Gender and urban-rural influences on antibiotic purchasing and prescription use in retail drug shops: a one health study.BMC public health · 2023Article
- The public's antibiotic use behavioural patterns and their determinants for upper respiratory tract infections: a latent class analysis based on consumer behaviour model in China.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Overuse of medications in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2023Article
- Multifactor Quality and Safety Analysis of Antimicrobial Drugs Sold by Online Pharmacies That Do Not Require a Prescription: Multiphase Observational, Content Analysis, and Product Evaluation Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2022Article
- Evaluating the integrated antimicrobial stewardship system of China by the assessment tool of WHO.Health care science · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo determine the prevalence of and factors associated with dispensing antibiotics without a prescription in online and community pharmacies in China.
methodsWe conducted a nationwide cross-sectional study of online and community pharmacies in 27 cities and counties in nine provinces in China (selected by multistage sampling) from July 2017 to December 2018. We assessed sale of antibiotics without a prescription and quality of pharmacy services through simulated clients who asked to buy specific antibiotics. We compared the prevalence of sales between online and community pharmacies, and between location and features of community pharmacies.
findingsOf 220 online and 675 community pharmacies, 174 (79.1%) and 586 (86.8%) sold antibiotics without a valid prescription, respectively. About half of the online pharmacies had a notice on their website about the illegality of selling prescription-only medicines without a prescription while none of the community pharmacists had. More online pharmacies without this notice dispensed antibiotics without a valid prescription (
conclusionGiven the high proportion of sales of prescription-only medicines without a prescription, there is a need to strengthen enforcement of regulations, improve public education on antibiotics, train pharmacy staff and consolidate public involvement in antibiotic stewardship in retail pharmacies in China.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.