Mar 2016

Physician concerns about medicine quality

By Roger Bate

The Safe Medicines Coalition is undertaking surveys of physicians in different cities in the world to ascertain knowledge and concern about inferior medicine quality. The first survey results from Africa are in and the summary statistics are below. 40 general physicians from the cities of Nairobi in Kenya, Lagos in Nigeria and Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania were surveyed. Some questions do not lend themselves to statistical compilation, so they are left blank in table 1 below. Over the next few months, we will release data from the surveys in both summary and more detailed form.

Read More…

Antibiotic Resistance in India: Drivers and Opportunities for Action

Ramanan Laxminarayan and Ranjit Roy, Chaudhury have an interesting paper in PLOS Medicine this week about antibiotic resistance in India which can be found here


Summary Points
  • Antibiotic use is a major driver of resistance. In 2010, India was the world’s largest consumer of antibiotics for human health.
  • Access to antibiotics is rising, which portends well for the large proportion of India’s population that has thus far had poor access to these life-saving drugs.
  • The convergence of factors such as poor public health infrastructure, rising incomes, a high burden of disease, and cheap, unregulated sales of antibiotics has created ideal conditions for a rapid rise in resistant infections in India.
  • Over-the-counter, nonprescription sales of carbapenems in India are among the highest in the world and contribute to growing carbapenem resistance among Gram-negative organisms.
  • Improving regulation of drug production and sales, better managing physician compensation, and encouraging behavior change among doctors and patients are of immediate priority.
Read More…
© 2014 Safe Medicines Coalition Contact Us