By ALVAR MWAKYUSA, 6th March 2011 @ 11:00, Total Comments: 0, Hits: 2738
ALMOST a third of anti-malaria drugs sold in Tanzania are substandard, according to the latest survey by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
This means that at least three out of ten people prescribed to use antimalarials in the country are administered with inferior medicines.
Malaria is the leading cause of deaths and disease burden in Tanzania. It accounts for about 40 per cent of all outpatient attendances.
According to the findings of the survey, one in ten samples showed "extreme" deviations in active ingredients or other standards, which could have life threatening implications.
The survey, called 'Assessment of Medicines regulatory systems in sub-Saharan African countries,' synthesized findings of rapid assessments performed at national medicines regulatory authorities (NMRAs) in 26 countries over the last eight years between 2002 and 2009.
Released on February 25 this year, the report also mentions Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria as countries whose markets are flooded with substandard anti-malaria drugs, just like Tanzania.
Although the health implications of failing drugs was not examined in the survey, WHO did not distinguish between counterfeit and substandard drugs in its overall statistics, the organisation said the results should not be regarded as "catastrophic" in health terms.
Contacted for comment yesterday, the Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Dr Deo Mtasiwa, said the ministry was unaware of the survey.
"I have not heard about it yet... I will follow up with other departments in the ministry tomorrow (today) to find out," he pledged during a telephone interview yesterday.
The Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) Acting Director General, Mr Hiiti Sillo, who was in Geneva, Switzerland during the launching of the report, said he will comment on the matter today.
"I am attending a meeting at this time, call me tomorrow, I will be in a better position to comment," he said.
It was also learnt during the survey that countries with domestic production of antimalarials fared slightly worse.
"It seems that regulators are focusing mainly on the quality of imports," said Jitko Sabatova, the WHO's technical officer responsible for pre-qualification of quality control labs.
Sabatova noted also that countries with the smallest number of suppliers to the market tended to have lower failure rates while the report pointed to important gaps in regulation and quality control within countries.
The highest incidence of failure was in Nigeria, with two-thirds of all samples failing WHO quality tests.
"That means in Nigeria a patient is more likely to be treated with a substandard drug than one which meets quality specifications," said Lembit Rago, the WHO's coordinator for quality assurance and medicines safety.
Ghana and Cameroon, with failure rates of 39 per cent and 37 per cent respectively, are not doing particularly well either.
Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania fared better, with failure rates of below 11 per cent. In these countries the WHO regards the quality of antimalarials to be reasonably under control. In Ethiopia no samples failed, in part because of a tight regulatory regime.
Kenya's failure rate of five per cent was a big improvement from studies carried out in 2003 when the failure rate for some samples was as high as 54 per cent.
No comments:
Post a Comment