[Ip-health] AFM PLoS One Malaria Drug Study

[Philip Coticelli]

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 Dear colleagues,

AFM's study of antimalarial drug quality in six major African cities is now
live on PLoS One:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002132<http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002132>


Reuters India has provided a nice summary:

http://in.reuters.com/article/health/idINN0651796020080507



Study Abstract: 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.



AFM's larger policy paper on antimalarial treatment in Africa is available
here: http://fightingmalaria.org/pdfs/AFMTreatmentPolicyPaper.pdf



Please feel free to contact me directly with questions.



Sincerely,

Philip Coticelli
Africa Fighting Malaria

africa@fightingmalaria.org
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