Quality Control of Selected Anttmalarials Sold In the Illicit Market: An Investigation Conducted ln Porto-Novo City [Republic of Benin)

Abstract

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 analyticaltests 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 ofthis study prove that street vended drugs offer no guarantee ofgood quality and pose a threat to the health ofpopulations. Also,the rate of non-compliance denotes a flaw in the security ofthe drug distribution system.