Monitoring the Quality of Antimalarial Medicines Circulating in Kenya: Round Seven
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Monitoring the Quality of Antimalarial Medicines Circulating in Kenya: Round Seven
Health products and technologies are essential components of healthcare service delivery. Sustainable Development Goal 3.8 specifically mentions the importance of ―access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all‖ as a central component of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goal 3.b emphasizes the need to develop medicines to address persistent treatment gaps. Access to good quality health products and technologies increases public confidence in healthcare systems.
Malaria still accounts for most number of deaths and outpatient visits in the Kenyan health care system. Availability of good quality medicines is essential in ensuring prompt and effective treatment of malaria according to the current national malaria strategy.
Twelve (12) counties were selected for sample collection based on epidemiological data demonstrating prevalence of malaria, medicines availability and accessibility, medicines circulating freely originating from border towns, ports of entry, and availability of human resources.
Sample collection and field-testing of the medicines took place between 22nd July and 2nd August 2019. This was followed by the level 2 verification testing that took place at PPB laboratory while compedial testing was carried out at NQCL in August 2019.
Availability of good quality medicines is essential in ensuring prompt and effective treatment of malaria according to the current national malaria strategy. This report presents the findings of the seventh round and compares the results obtained with the previous six rounds of monitoring of the quality of anti-malarials that have been done over the last eight years.
Sixty antimalarial samples were targeted for counties clustered into two and forty samples for counties clustered into three to form a cluster site. The purposive sampling of anti-malarials included artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) and Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SPs), artesunate injection , quinine tablets , dihydroartemesinin piperaquine (DHAP) among others, based on their availability. Sampling was done in the public, private and informal sectors.
Basic testing using the Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF) MinilabTM was performed on most collected samples at the sentinel sites. This was followed by verification y testing of 10 percent of the samples that passed minilab analysis, all doubtful samples and all failed samples at the PPB laboratory.
The results indicate that the presence of unregistered and substandard anti- malarials in the market has reduced over time. For the samples that underwent compendial testing all of them (100%) passed analysis while 99.6% of the samples were found to be registered with the Pharmacy and Poisons Board.
This shows that the antimalarial medicines in Kenya are generally of good quality. The sustained and continuous monitoring of the antimalarials has led to improved quality and registration status over time. The results also show the advantage of utilizing screening technologies like minilabs for rapid and cost-effective way medicines in the field.
Attached Files
| File | Action |
|---|---|
| Round 7 MQM Report 11 Oct 2019 Final Report.pdf | Download |
