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A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field

Poor-quality medicines are a major problem for health-care systems in resource-poor settings as identifying falsified medicines requires a complex laboratory infrastructure such as a Medicines Quality Control Laboratory. We report here an evaluation of a low-cost, handheld near-infrared spectrometer...

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Autores principales: Wilson, Benjamin K., Kaur, Harparkash, Allan, Elizabeth Louise, Lozama, Anthony, Bell, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5417204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28219992
http://dx.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0904
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author Wilson, Benjamin K.
Kaur, Harparkash
Allan, Elizabeth Louise
Lozama, Anthony
Bell, David
author_facet Wilson, Benjamin K.
Kaur, Harparkash
Allan, Elizabeth Louise
Lozama, Anthony
Bell, David
author_sort Wilson, Benjamin K.
collection PubMed
description Poor-quality medicines are a major problem for health-care systems in resource-poor settings as identifying falsified medicines requires a complex laboratory infrastructure such as a Medicines Quality Control Laboratory. We report here an evaluation of a low-cost, handheld near-infrared spectrometer (NIRS) device by analyzing a library of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) medicines to determine its usefulness as a drug-screening tool. The “SCiO” research prototype device was used to collect NIR spectra of a library of ACT and artesunate monotherapy medicine samples previously collected in Bioko Island and Equatorial Guinea and Kintampo, Ghana. The quality of these samples had been categorized as falsified, substandard, and quality assured based on the amount of stated active pharmaceutical ingredients detected using high-performance liquid chromatography photodiode array. Numerical analyses were performed on the NIR spectra to assess the usefulness of NIR to identify falsified and substandard medicines. The NIRS device was successful at detecting falsified medicines in all cases where the library contained both quality assured and falsified medicines of the same stated brand of medicines. The NIRS device was successful at identifying substandard amounts of artesunate but not amodiaquine in the ACT samples (N = 15) of artesunate–amodiaquine. This work reveals that this low-cost, portable NIRS device is promising for screening ACTs for falsified samples and could enable widespread drug screening at all points of the health system.
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spelling pubmed-54172042017-05-08 A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field Wilson, Benjamin K. Kaur, Harparkash Allan, Elizabeth Louise Lozama, Anthony Bell, David Am J Trop Med Hyg Articles Poor-quality medicines are a major problem for health-care systems in resource-poor settings as identifying falsified medicines requires a complex laboratory infrastructure such as a Medicines Quality Control Laboratory. We report here an evaluation of a low-cost, handheld near-infrared spectrometer (NIRS) device by analyzing a library of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) medicines to determine its usefulness as a drug-screening tool. The “SCiO” research prototype device was used to collect NIR spectra of a library of ACT and artesunate monotherapy medicine samples previously collected in Bioko Island and Equatorial Guinea and Kintampo, Ghana. The quality of these samples had been categorized as falsified, substandard, and quality assured based on the amount of stated active pharmaceutical ingredients detected using high-performance liquid chromatography photodiode array. Numerical analyses were performed on the NIR spectra to assess the usefulness of NIR to identify falsified and substandard medicines. The NIRS device was successful at detecting falsified medicines in all cases where the library contained both quality assured and falsified medicines of the same stated brand of medicines. The NIRS device was successful at identifying substandard amounts of artesunate but not amodiaquine in the ACT samples (N = 15) of artesunate–amodiaquine. This work reveals that this low-cost, portable NIRS device is promising for screening ACTs for falsified samples and could enable widespread drug screening at all points of the health system. The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2017-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5417204/ /pubmed/28219992 http://dx.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0904 Text en ©The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Articles
Wilson, Benjamin K.
Kaur, Harparkash
Allan, Elizabeth Louise
Lozama, Anthony
Bell, David
A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field
title A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field
title_full A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field
title_fullStr A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field
title_full_unstemmed A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field
title_short A New Handheld Device for the Detection of Falsified Medicines: Demonstration on Falsified Artemisinin-Based Therapies from the Field
title_sort new handheld device for the detection of falsified medicines: demonstration on falsified artemisinin-based therapies from the field
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5417204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28219992
http://dx.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0904
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