[e-drug] Paediatric drug formulations (cont'd)

["Beverley Snell" <bev@burnet.edu.au>]

E-DRUG: Paediatric drug formulations (cont'd)
---------------------------------------------

Dear Atieno

<  However, what we need now is scientists like you to give us some 
backing in terms of such studies. As a quick concern, why is it that 
malaria deaths in children in Africa are not on the decline despite 
the availability of medicines for prevention and treatment? Could 
resistance to these medicines be emerging out of underdosing due to 
the pill splitting practices? >

I wonder whether it is worth raising again the issue aired in the 
Essential Drugs Monitor 33 by Hilbrand Haak in his review of the 
study by Maponga and Ondari:  The quality of antimalarials: A study 
in selected African Countries.   WHO/EDM/PAR/2003.4.  The problem 
with poor quality products was exposed leading to confusion about 
whether resistance was responsible for treatment failure or whether 
insufficient ingredients in the products were the cause.

Beverley

Beverley Snell
Centre for International Health
Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research & Public Health
GPO Box 2284, Melbourne 3001 Australia
http://www.burnet.internationalhealth.edu.au

Telephone 613 9282 2115 / 9282 2275
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