An in-depth study of patent medicine sellers' perspectives on malaria in a rural Nigerian community

Theodora A Okeke,Benjamin Sc Uzochukwu,Henrietta U Okafor

doi:10.1186/1475-2875-5-97

Abstract

BackgroundMalaria remains a major cause of mortality among under five children in Nigeria. Most of the early treatments for fever and malaria occur through self-medication with antimalarial drugs bought from medicine sellers. These have led to increasing calls for interventions to improve treatment obtained in these outlets. However, information about the current practices of these medicine sellers is needed before such interventions. This study aims to determine the medicine sellers' perspectives on malaria and the determinants that underlie their dispensing patterns of antimalarial drugs.MethodsThe study was conducted in Ugwugo-Nike, a rural community in south-east Nigeria. It involved in-depth interviews with 13 patent medicine sellers.ResultsA majority of the medicine sellers were not trained health professionals and malaria is recognized as a major health problem by them. There is poor knowledge and poor dispensing behaviour in relation to childhood malaria episodes. Although referral of severe malaria is common, there are those who will not refer. Verbal advice is rarely given to the care-givers.ConclusionMore action research and interventions to improve prescription and referral practices and giving verbal advice to care-givers is recommended. Ways to integrate the drug sellers in the health system are also recommended.

Highlights

Malaria remains a major cause of mortality among under five children in Nigeria
A good number of the vendors had adequate knowledge of signs and symptoms of malaria, the results show that their knowledge of correct antimalarial dosage is low for both mild and severe childhood malaria leading to the administration of both over- and under-dosage of antimalarial drugs
This study brings up the issues regarding the poor knowledge and poor dispensing behaviour of patent medicine sellers (PMS) in relation to childhood malaria episodes

Summary

Introduction

Malaria remains a major cause of mortality among under five children in Nigeria. Most of the early treatments for fever and malaria occur through self-medication with antimalarial drugs bought from medicine sellers. These have led to increasing calls for interventions to improve treatment obtained in these outlets. Malaria is a major public health problem in Nigeria, being one of the five leading causes of out-patient visits and mortality, especially in children under five years of age [1]. Most of the early treatments for fever in most developing countries occur through self-medication with antimalarial drugs bought from patent medicine sellers (PMS) [4,5,6]. The patent medicine seller can be defined as a person without formal pharmacy training, who sells orthodox pharmaceutical products on a retail basis for profit [10]

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