TITLE:
Quality Control of Selected Antimalarials Sold in the Illicit Market: An Investigation Conducted in Porto-Novo City (Republic of Benin)
AUTHORS:
Farid Baba-Moussa, Jacob Bonou, Hélène Ahouandjinou, Tamègnon Victorien Dougnon, Lisette Kpavode, Nawal Raimi, Aurore Ogouyemi-Hounto, Idrissou Abdoulaye, Fatiou Toukourou, Frédéric Loko, Dorothée Kindé-Gazard, Flore Gangbo, Lamine Baba-Moussa
KEYWORDS:
Antimalarial, Counterfeit Medicine, Quality Control, Illicit Market
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.6 No.10,
October
27,
2015
ABSTRACT: Malaria is a parasitic disease caused by the bite of female Anopheles mosquito and particularly
affects the tropical areas of the world. According to national statistics it is the leading cause of
consultations and hospitalizations. Nowadays, despite the surveillance systems for efficient malaria
control and access to generic drugs, Benin is witnessing an increased development of illicit
drug markets with a large part of the population going towards such markets. However, this is not
without adverse impact on the health of individuals, as well as, the economic status of the country.
Therefore, the situation needs to be seriously considered by policy makers at various levels,
health professionals but also the entire international community in order to thwart this scourge.Regarding the aforementioned situation, the current study was undertaken aiming to perform a
quality control of selected antimalarial drugs of the illegal market in Porto-Novo city. Therefore,
40 antimalarial batches were randomly collected in the illicit drug market and submitted to analytical
tests such as: macroscopic examination (a visual and critical examination); mass uniformity
test; disintegration test; identification test and active ingredients’ content measurement. At the
end of the study, the percentages of non-compliance is 97.5%, 5%, 15% and 27.5%, respectively
for the content uniformity tests, disintegration, identification and assay. Over-all, 42.5% of noncompliance
was recorded. The findings of this study prove that street vended drugs offer no guarantee
of good quality and pose a threat to the health of populations. Also, the rate of non-compliance
denotes a flaw in the security of the drug distribution system.