Medicine Stores Research Articles

Rural health care access and financing among cooperative members in rural Nigeria

Rural areas in developing countries have limited access to inclusive healthcare delivery and financing. Membership in cooperatives has been suggested as a pathway to rural health inclusiveness. However, whether cooperative membership supports rural health access and financing remains unclear. This study appraises rural healthcare access and financing, and whether membership in cooperative societies offers healthcare advantages to rural households in Nigeria. Primary data were collected in 45 rural communities consisting of 900 households as respondents. Healthcare access is limited among rural households with only 1.1% of pregnant women having access to maternity healthcare. Traditional healthcare access and self-medication exist (27%), in addition to the use of medicine stores (23.2%) and poorly equipped private medical facilities (13.8%) in rural areas. Cooperative organisations provide limited support to healthcare access (74%) for the members. Similarly, rural health financing support from the cooperative is almost non-existent (73.6%). There is a near absence of health insurance (90.8%) in rural areas. However, rural healthcare financing support for the employed exists (31.7%). Rural households find support for healthcare access from family (1.3%), personal savings, and sales of assets (16.2%) while the majority (82.5%) use herbs at no quantifiable cost to meet healthcare needs. Cooperative societies must be educated on the need to incorporate healthcare packages into their products for members. Rural healthcare policies should pay significant attention to how long it takes rural inhabitants to reach existing healthcare facilities.

RANCANG BANGUN SISTEM INFORMASI “OBATPEDIA” SEBAGAI MEDIA EDUKASI TENTANG OBAT-OBATAN BERBASIS WEBSITE

Today, the ease of obtaining medicines for the public has improved significantly thanks to developments in technology and healthcare infrastructure. Access to medicines has become easier through pharmacies. A survey of 35 community members in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara showed that 85.3% stored medicines without doctor's instructions and needed education on the proper use of medicines. A survey of 23 pharmacists also showed that 95.5% of pharmacists need a drug education platform that makes it easier for them to provide drug education. Departing from the problem of the lack of public understanding of medicines and the need for pharmacists to provide drug education easily, this study aims to design and build an information system, “ObatPedia,” as an educational media about website-based medicines. The method used is Personal Extreme Programming (PXP) because this website will be developed flexibly, quickly, and responsive to change. In this method, some stages are passed, including Planning, Iteration, Initialization, Design, Implementation, and Testing, so the website can be developed with the expected features and usability. The results Mean opinion score of this system a Mean Opinion score of 4.345 from the public and 4.472 from pharmacists on a scale of 1 to 5, which shows that users strongly agree that the ObatPedia website can help to increase public knowledge and understanding of medicines.

Association of Sociodemographic and Knowledge about Drug Storage and Expiration Date in Bantul District

Storing medicines is a crucial thing to do because storing medicines will affect the stability and effectiveness of the stored medicines. Drug storage is closely related to the expiration time of the drug. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between sociodemographics and the level of public knowledge about drug storage and drug expiration. This study employed a cross-sectional survey study method. The sample was the residents of Bantul Regency taken using convenience sampling, in the data collection period September-November 2023, with a total of 104 respondents. The questionnaire includes sociodemographic data, storage domain and drug expiration time, distributed on Googleform. Data were analyzed descriptively and using the Chi-square statistical test with p<0.05. The research results showed that 61 (58.7%) respondents had a good level of knowledge of drug storage, 43 (41.3%) and 82 (78.8%) respondents had a good level of knowledge of drug expiration. There is a relationship between gender (p=0.032) and occupation (p=0.041) with the level of knowledge of drug storage and there is a relationship between income (p=0.025) and the level of knowledge of drug expiration. Continuous educational efforts by pharmacists are needed to increase public literacy regarding drug storage.Keywords: Bantul regency, drug expiration,drug store, health literacy, knowledge.

Cost analysis of anticancer chemotherapy and chemoirradiation regimens considering the drugs marketed through Jan Aushadhi (People's Medicine) stores and their branded counterparts: First cost comparison study.

Chemotherapy in an integral part of cancer treatment, either administered alone or in combination with radiation. However, the cost of these drugs is often prohibitively high for most patients. To address this issue, the Government of India has established Jan Aushadhi (JAS) stores across the country, where affordable generic medicines are available. In the current study, we performed a cost minimization analysis comparing JAS drugs with branded chemotherapeutic drugs used in various cancer treatment regimens. This study was to conduct a cost-minimization analysis by comparing the costs of different regimens when using JAS drugs, the most expensive branded drugs, and the least expensive branded drugs in the treatment of cancer in India. The study focused on conducting a cost minimization analysis of various chemotherapy drugs used in the treatment of different cancers, considering the availability of anticancer drugs at JAS stores. The costs for different chemotherapy regimens, including both anticancer and supportive drugs, were calculated for single and complete cycles. The costs of the most expensive and least expensive branded drugs were noted from the Current Index of Medical Stores. The cost difference (CD) was calculated by subtracting the cost of the cheaper drug from that of the costliest brand. The cost ratio (CR) and the percentage of cost variation (PCV) were calculated for India-specific conditions. The study analyzed the CD for various regimens using JAS drugs for chemotherapy treatment of breast, esophagus, rectal, colon, stomach, prostate, ovary, endometrial, cervical, head and neck, lung, multiple myeloma, testicular, and lymphoma cancers. It also considered chemoirradiation regimens for brain, head and neck, anorectal, esophageal, and uterine cervical cancers. Significant CDs were observed when both anticancer and supportive drugs were obtained from JAS stores. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to consider the CD, CR, and PCV for various regimens using JAS drugs, as well as the costliest and cheapest branded drugs in standard cancer treatment regimens. The results of this study are expected to assist healthcare professionals and pharmacists in understanding the cost-saving benefits of substituting expensive branded drugs with more affordable chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of cancer. This substitution can provide financial benefit for socioeconomically marginalized population.

Availability, pricing, and affordability of essential medicines for pediatric population in Malawi.

Lack of access to essential medicines negatively impacts on the quality of healthcare delivery and increases morbidity and mortality, especially to the vulnerable pediatric population. We assessed the availability, pricing, and affordability of pediatric formulations in Malawi. The study was conducted in 76 health facilities (public, faith-based and private pharmacies, and clinics) from the northern and southern regions of Malawi from March to May 2023. We adapted the WHO/HAI method for the assessment of both availability and pricing of medicines. Data on availability were collected from stock card records using a WHO/HAI template and medicine prices were provided by the pharmacy personnel who were managing the facilities. Availability of medicines was calculated as the percentage of facilities which had a stock of the respective medicine at the time of data collection while medicine prices was assessed by calculating the median prices of each medicine. To assess the affordability of the medicines, we calculated the number of days it takes for a person who is receiving the government-set minimum wage to work to pay for a treatment course of common indications. The study was approved by the KUHES ethics committee under the numbers U.12/22/3900 and U.12/22/3903. The overall availability of pediatric medicines was 38.1% for public health facilities, 53.7% for private retail pharmacies and drug stores, 49.5% for private clinics and 48.3% for Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) facilities. We found the illegal availability of prescription-only medicines of up to 54% in medicine stores. Medicine median prices were higher in the private clinics followed by retail pharmacies and drugs stores. CHAM had the lowest median prices for medicines of all the sectors. More than 50% of medicines were found to be affordable as less than a day's wage was required to purchase the treatment. We found poor availability of pediatric formulation among public, CHAM, and private sectors in Malawi. This may affect the quality of care among pediatric patients and therefore contribute to morbidity and mortality in Malawi. The supply of medicines and health commodities needs to consider needs of special populations such as children to achieve universal health coverage.

IJCM_110A: How informed are our patients about generic medicines? – A study from coastal South India

Background: Medicines form a major part of out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) for patients. The government has introduced schemes to distribute generic medicines at low cost to reduce the financial burden on patients. This study was undertaken to assess the community’s perception of the same. The study aimed to assess the awareness and perception of generic medicines among people visiting tertiary care hospitals in Mangalore. Methodology: This study was a hospital-based cross-sectional study, conducted in two hospitals, one private hospital, and another a government tertiary healthcare centre. A semi-structured questionnaire including socio- demographic variables and questions to assess the knowledge, attitude, and perception about generic medicines and programs about the same was given to the participants. The information obtained was analyzed using SPSS version 17.0 for descriptive statistics. Results: The study included 300 participants. Around 50% of the study participants were aware of the program, of which 59.3% were from a private health setup. The main source of information was found to be friends and family (21.3%). More than half of the people who were aware of the program had never visited a generic medicine store (56%). Conclusion: Knowledge regarding generic medicines was found to be minimal among the participants, especially from the people visiting the public health setup. Hence there is less than optimum utilization of these schemes.

Factors influencing drug stock-outs at health facilities – mocuba

Introduction: Outage of Medicine Stocks is the unavailability of medicines needed by users in health units, pharmacies and medicine stores. In Mozambique, cases of drug stocks breaking in health units constitute a concern for the population of users, academics and the government in finding solutions to resolve this situation. The objective of the present study is to eliminate the factors that influence the rupture of medicine stocks in health units in the district of Mocuba. Methodology: The study was carried out in health units in the district of Mocuba, Province of Zambézia in the year 2023. This is an explanatory and retrospective research, with a quantitative approach. The instruments used were elaborate documents called medication lists, requisitions, delivery notes and data organization sheets relating to the study period. Observation and documentary research techniques were used to collect data. The comparative, statistical and inductive method was used. The sample size was 40 medicines in each month of the research period in the health units. The data was analyzed using the Microsoft Excel 2010 program. Results and discussion: 2400 pharmaceutical specialties from different pharmacological groups were studied, namely: ARVS, Antimalarials, Tuberculostatics, Antifungals, Contraceptives and Antibiotics. The percentage of medicines ordered and not received was 34.9 %. The data collected showed that 36.9 % of medications were received with a low level of satisfaction; The group of unordered medicines constitutes 28.2 % and the percentage of medicines diverted to the informal market was 0 %. Conclusions: The factors that influence the rupture of medicine stocks in health units in the district of Mocuba are: medicines ordered and not received, medicines received with a low level of satisfaction, medicines not ordered and in some situations the diversion of medicines to the informal market.

Storage, Reuse and Disposal Practices of Home - Stored Medicines in Urban Households in Pune, India

Background: Improper home medicine storage is a global issue that leads to medicine wastage contributing to adverse effects. There have only been a few community-based research studies for in-home drug storage methods, reasons for use and its disposal ways among the consumers of India, until date. Methodology: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was done from April 2023 to June 2023. Data were collected by face-to-face interview of household representative using pretested structured questionnaire on medicines in households, their utilization, storage and disposal practices. Results: Most of the participants (78.3%) were educated to the level of graduation and above and their common reported source of procurement for stored medicines was doctor’s previous prescriptions (61.79%) where 42.5% of them stored medicines for anticipated future use. Commonly stored drugs in households were analgesics and antihistaminics and drugs for digestive system while only 5.3% stored antibiotics mostly for ongoing treatment. Unsafe storage practices like storing medicines without proper labelling (65%) and within reach of children (33.49%) were found in the study. Also, 42.45% participants reported to share stored medicines with family members and friends. Major practice for drug disposal was reported as throwing in household garbage (93.1%). Conclusion: In current study, 100% prevalence of in-home storage medication practices among the well-educated consumers without proper care taken for their use, storage and disposal which may pose a risk to the environment as well as humans.

Integrated Telemedicine and E-Health with ERP System

In Medicals and medicine is very essential and most required thing in the world .so here is the resource to reach to everyone i.e. Medical solution for all the roles required in the main purpose of this integrated system is to keep the expire medicines record as well as to notify with itsneed and expire date. I’ll deal with the proof of concept of the most important part in telemedicine by doing many simulations on Software including the platform development, and those demonstrations are based on the actual data. In telemedicine you can buy medicine and also concern the doctor. It helps medical store owner to about medicine expiries and store details to maintain the medicine.The specific proposals are considered for the implementation of telemedicine screening complex on the application

Psycho-Socio Personal Predictors of Health-Seeking Behaviours among Young Adults in Tertiary Institutions in Delta State, Nigeria

The psycho socio-economic personal devastating issues of climate change and emerging health issues like Ebola and COVID-19 have resulted in massive preventable deaths among young adults and increased ill-health in most Nigerian campuses. The result of emerging health issues birthed a new normal requiring new health knowledge, practices, skills, and innovations of health-seeking behaviour in nearly all facets of human endeavor that conform to global climate change and emerging health issues instituted by Covid-19 prevention protocols designed to curb its spread. One such health survival strategy is the promotion of positive health-seeking behaviour of young adults in tertiary institutions in Delta State. This research investigates the joint contribution of the independent variables (health education, personal income, safe water, stress management, environmental sanitation, food security, nutritional practice, medical check-up, physical exercise, personal hygiene, attitudinal behaviour, cultural belief, access to basic health services, personal health) as predictors of health-seeking behaviour among young adults in tertiary institutions in Delta state. A total of 7620 questionnaires were sent out for the study; 4000 females but 3869 (56.5%) were correctly filled and 3500 males but 2981 (43.5%) were correctly filled by young adults in eight tertiary institutions in Delta State, Nigeria. The findings of this study revealed that psychological and personal factors are significant predictors of health-seeking behavior among young adults and social factors are not significant to health-seeking behavior among young adults. There was no significant gender difference in health knowledge and health-seeking behaviour among tertiary students. Recommendation was made that the State government should make healthcare services available and accessible to students in all our tertiary institutions in Delta state at affordable cost to discourage negative health-seeking behaviours from quacks and unqualified healthcare givers, patronizing patent medicine stores to avoid preventable deaths, spread of infectious diseases’ and promote the personal health of students while in the campus.

Private sector availability and affordability of under 5 malaria health commodities in selected states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory.

To guarantee uninterrupted service delivery, quality-assured products must be affordable and continuously available across all sectors, including the private sector, which provides more than 60% of healthcare services in Nigeria. We investigated the private sector availability and affordability of under 5 malaria commodities to establish the level of access in this sector. We surveyed patent medicine and pharmacy stores across seven states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory to establish the availability and affordability of selected malaria commodities for children under 5 years. Availability was measured as the percentage of visited outlets with the product of interest on the day of visit, while affordability was assessed by establishing if it cost more than a day's wage for the least-paid government worker to purchase a full course of malaria diagnostic test and/or medication. Artemisinin-based antimalarials for uncomplicated and severe malaria were the most available commodities. SPAQ1 and SPAQ2 used for seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaign were surprisingly also available in some outlets. However, only about half (48.3% and 53.3%) of the surveyed outlets had stock of artemether/lumefantrine (AL1) and artesunate injection, respectively. The median price of surveyed products ranged from USD (United States Dollars) 0.38 to USD 2.17 per treatment/test. Except for amodiaquine tablet and artemether injection, which cost less, all other originator brands cost the same or more than the lowest-priced generic. Antimalarial products were affordable as their median prices were not more than a day's wage for the least-paid government worker. However, when the cost of testing and treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) was assessed, testing and treatment with dihydroartemisinin/piperaquine were unaffordable as the they cost more than 1.5 times the daily wage of the least-paid government worker. The overall private sector availability of under-five malaria commodities in surveyed locations was suboptimal. Also, testing and treatment with recommended ACTs were not affordable for all surveyed products. These findings suggest the need for interventions to improve access to affordable under-five malaria commodities.

Temperature variations in pharmaceutical storage facilities and knowledge, attitudes, and practices of personnel on proper storage conditions for medicines in southern Malawi.

We assessed the temperature variations in pharmacies and medicine storage areas in southern Malawi and conducted a knowledge, attitude and practices survey for personnel who manage medicine stores in various health facilities. This was a longitudinal study design that used installed Tempmate® thermometers in 27 selected health facilities to record temperatures every 15 min for a period of 9 months. In addition, a questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding good pharmaceutical storage. Observations were also made on the storage structures of the facilities and compared with the mean kinetic temperature. Storage temperature ranged from 13.8°C to 42°C with mean kinetic temperature (MKT) being 25.3°C (95% CI 24.4-26.2°C). Mean temperature for public facilities was lower (23.8°C) than the faith-based facilities (25.2°C) and private facilities (26.6°C). In terms of level of health care, lower temperatures were recorded in facilities offering tertiary level of care as compared to secondary and primary care facilities, p < 0.001. For the type of storage facilities, storage-in-a-box unit (SIAB) presented lower temperatures than ordinary storage areas (non-SIAB), p < 0.001. Majority of health workers (69%) had good knowledge on proper storage conditions. Air conditioners and thermometers were available in 88.4 and 76.9% of the facilities, respectively. However, few facilities utilized the air conditioners due to electricity problems. About 46.15% of the participants were able to correctly record temperatures (at least twice a day) for the storage facilities, 23.07% did not properly record while 30.77% of the personnel did not keep temperature records at all. Limited storage space was among the challenges that facilities encounter to maintain proper storage conditions. Despite having the necessary knowledge on proper storage conditions, the pharmacy personnel failed to adhere to good pharmaceutical storage practices due to resource limitations. There is a need for stakeholder interventions such as increasing budget allocation to address the challenges faced by the health facilities.

Study of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Prescribing Generic Medicines by Resident Doctors at a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

ABSTRACT Context: In this era of rapidly rising health-care costs, generic medications offer a more cost-effective alternative to branded medications. Aims: The main objective of this study is to evaluate junior (resident) doctors’ knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding the prescription of generic medications in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Settings and Design: It is an observational, cross-sectional study held at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: An online, prevalidated questionnaire was used for this study. Results: A total response of 102 resident doctors was recorded. 75.70% (78) of the participants responded positively that generic medicines are cheaper than branded medicines. 68.90% (71) of participants had knowledge regarding Jan Aushadhi Yojana and generic medicine stores. About 90.30% (93) of participants positively suggested conducting a training program to increase the awareness regarding generic medicines and 86.40% (89) of participants suggested promoting the use of generic medicines. However, 26.20% (27) of participants had not read any article on generic medicines and 30.10% (31) participants disagreed with the substitution of a branded drug with a generic medicine by pharmacists. Sixty-five percent (67) of the participants preferred to prescribe generic medicines and 79.60% (82) of participants suggested that they are willing to encourage the patients to use generic medicines. Conclusions: Our study found that the resident doctors were well-versed in the idea of generic medications and their advantages. However, promoting training initiatives, setting up workshops, running journal club meetings, continuing medical education, etc., need to be planned to boost the number of prescriptions for generic drugs.

Analysis and Evaluation on the Quality of Pueraria Lobata in the Market Based on High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)

Objective: To evaluate the quality of Pueraria lobata sold in the market and establish a HPLC method for the analysis of Pueraria lobata. Method: Acclaim 120 C18 chromatographic column (5 μm. 4.6 * 250mm), acetonitrile-0.1% formic acid aqueous solution was used as the mobile phase for gradient elution, and the contents of 5 components, 3'-methoxy puerarin, puerarin, daidzin, daidzein, and 3'-hydroxypuerarin, were determined in 11 commercial pueraria lobata from different habitats. Results: The contents of these five components in pueraria lobata from different habitats were different. Anhui No. 003 and No. 006 have higher chemical constituents. Conclusion: The method established in this experiment is accurate, with good separation effect, and can be used to detect the content of five different substances in Pueraria lobata. The determination results can provide valuable reference information for the purchase of traditional Chinese medicine stores and provide effective scientific basis for the development of Pueraria lobata resources.

Factors Influencing Public Willingness to Reuse the Unused Stored Medications in Jordan: A Cross-Sectional Study

The reissuing, redispensing, redistributing, or even recycling of the returned unused stored medicines is referred to as medicine reuse. A few studies have examined people's willingness to reuse unused stored medicines. This study aims primarily to explore the public's willingness to reuse unused stored medicines in the future and the factors affecting their decisions, and to assess the pharmacological types and formulations of the unused stored medicines by the public. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenient sampling technique over three weeks (February-March 2022) among Jordanian populations. Data were collected from 681 participants who agreed to fill out a questionnaire, which was distributed online. Participants showed a positive perception of reusing any of the unused stored medicines in the future; of those, 79.6% (n = 400) believed that reusing "unused medicines" has economic benefits and 50% (n = 251) believe there are environmental benefits. Moreover, more than half of the participants believed that reusing "unused medicines" is safe (n = 256, 51%), but provided that a pharmacist or a doctor evaluates their quality or that the unused medicines are stored well. Results from this study show that the public positively endorses the idea of reusing unused stored medicines if the quality and safety are assured. However, future studies are needed to evaluate the Jordanian healthcare professionals' perceptions towards medicine reuse and pharmaceutical companies' willingness to be a part or facilitator of medicine reuse.

Pattern and predictors of medication use among adults in southwestern Nigeria: A community-based cross-sectional study.

Population-based drug utilization studies are scanty in Nigeria. The aim was to determine the pattern and predictors of medication use among adults in the communities of Southwestern Nigeria. A cross-sectional study was conducted among adults selected by multi-stage sampling from Oyo State communities. The questionnaires, adapted from the WHO Students' Drug Use Questionnaire and previous studies, were pretested and interviewer administered. The respondents' socio-demographic characteristics, the pattern of medication use, prescribers, and sources of drug acquisition were obtained. Binary logistic regression was used to determine the predictor of medications used. Of the 999 respondents, 501 resided in rural communities while 498 dwelled in urban areas. The mean (±SD) age of the respondents was 38 ± 15 years. The median (range)% prevalence of medication use were as follows: lifetime use, 58.2 (17.7-81.0); current use, 31.2 (8.9-65.9); and past use, 20.3 (9.2-28.9). Medications were mainly obtained from patent medicine stores, median (range%), 71 (65-80). The commonly used drugs were paracetamol, 626 (67.6); nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, 174 (18.8); artemether/lumefantrine, 422 (68.2); ampicillin/cloxacillin, 220 (48.6); and chlorpheniramine, 59 (39.9). Factors predictive of current medication use, adjusted odd ratio (95% confidence interval) were as follows: antimalarial [male, 0.7 (0.5, 0.9)]; antibacterial [male, 0.6 (0.4-0.9)]; analgesics [married, 1.5 (1.1-2.2); presence of health facilities, 0.5 (0.3-0.7); and shorter distance to health facility, 1.5 (1.1-2.1)]. Antimalarials, antibacterial, and analgesics were commonly used and inappropriately obtained by adults in Southwestern Nigeria. Factors predictive of current medication use were gender, marital status, the presence of health facilities, and distance to health facilities. There is a need for more extensive countrywide medication use studies and enlightenment programs to ensure the appropriate use of medications.

Stakeholder perspectives on the demand and supply factors driving substandard and falsified blood pressure lowering medications in Nigeria: a qualitative study

ObjectivesAlthough substandard and falsified (SF) blood pressure (BP) lowering medications are a global problem, qualitative research exploring factors driving this in Nigeria has not been reported. This study provides information...

Effects of Nutritional Practices and Production Systems on Small Ruminants’ Health in Rural Households in Ekiti State, Nigeria

The study assessed the effect of nutritional practices and production systems on the health of small ruminant animals reared among rural households in Ekiti State. A total number of 120 rural households were interviewed using a multi-stage random sampling procedure to elicit information from them. About 78.32 percent were within their active age range, 50.00 percent were married with minimum household size of 5 persons, had least educational qualification and 41.66 percent reared sheep and goats. Disease outbreak (50.00%), accident (33.33%) and stillbirth (16.66%) are the common factors responsible for mortality experienced by the farmers, while diarrhea is the prevalent disease experienced by them. More than half (58.13%) of the respondents practices self-medication by purchasing antibiotics meant for humans from medicine stores and very few of them (18.33%) received intervention from the government in terms of medication. Only 33.00% of them offer supplementary feeding to their animals during the dry season. Chi-square analysis revealed a significant relationship (p=0.05) between nutritional practices and the health system of the small ruminants. Also, the Pearson Moment Product Correlation also revealed that a significant correlation (rcal= 0.927) exists between production systems and the health of small ruminants in the study area which is significant at 0.05 level of probability. The study, concludes that if animals are poorly managed and fed, they could be predisposed to diseases and injuries.

Anti-hyperlipidemic activity screening on induced hyperlipidemia in rats, anti-microbial activity determination and phytochemicals evaluation of Morus Rubra fruits extract

To prepare the ethanolic extract of fresh fruits of Morus Rubra through maceration method and study the antihyperlipidemic effects of the extracts in Triton X-100 induced hyperlipidemia rats. The fresh fruits of Morus Rubra were purchased from local Chinese medicine store. The air-dried fresh fruits of Morus Rubra were extracted with absolute ethanol (99-100%) through maceration method for 8 days. Hyperlipidemia was induced in male Sprague-Dawley rats by 10% Triton X-100 (100mg/kg, i.p) injection. Hyperlipidemia rats were treated with simvastatin (20mg/kg, p.o) or fresh fruits of Morus Rubra extract (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg, p.o) for 7 days. The blood samples were collected before and after treatment of simvastatin and extract to access antihyperlipidemic effect of an ethanolic extract of fresh fruits of Morus Rubra. The mass of the rats also weighted at regular interval which is at day 1, 3 and 7. At the end of the experiment, serum lipid profile was analyzed for all the experimental animals and compared with hyperlipidemic control. The ethanolic extract of fresh fruits of Morus Rubra at 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg has showed significant antihyperlipidemic activity. The experiment rats exhibited a significant change in lipid profile as compare to hyperlipidemia group. The ethanolic extract of the fresh fruits of Morus Rubra showed significant antihyperlipidemic activity against Triton X-100 induced hyperlipidemia rats

Quality of Oral Drug Formulations of Artemisinin-Based Combination Therapy Sold in Katsina State, Nigeria

There are increasing reports of substandard antimalarial drugs, and these have been a severe under-recognised public health problem especially in developing countries. For this reason, 21 samples of different brands of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) comprising of artemether/lumefantrine and artesunate/amodiaquine oral drug formulations that are available on sale in different hospital pharmacies and patent medicine stores in Katsina State, Nigeria were evaluated for microbial and chemical qualities. Microbial limit test (MLT) and assay for the content of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) using standard high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) procedures were carried out as described in the official monograph of the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) and the International Pharmacopoeia (IP). The results obtained had indicated that all the ACTs oral drug preparations were free from microbial contamination except one sample of artesunate-amodiaquine showing viable total combined yeasts/moulds count (TYMC) of 1.0 x 101 colony forming units (CFU)/g. All the samples complied with the USP and IP criteria for the microbiological quality of non-sterile oral dosage forms. On the other hand, 10 (47.6%) out of the 21 samples met the specific chemical quality standards. Moreover, 8 (57.1%) and 3 (42.9%) of the artemether/lumefantrine and artesunate/amodiaquine had active ingredient outside the set pharmacopoeial limit and, therefore, were none compliant to the IP specifications for percentage content. The presence of substandard ACTs may lead to possible therapeutic failure from the use of such kind of formulations, facilitate the development and spread of drug-resistance. There is the need for effective government regulation and adequate enforcement on the production, distribution and sales of good quality medicines.