TB, malaria drugs added to Minilab field testing kit

The Global Pharma Health Fund has extended the capabilities of its Minilab kit, used to test medicines for authenticity and quality in developing countries, to include additional drugs such as treatments for tuberculosis.

GPHF, a charitable institution supported by German pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA and support by the US Pharmacopeia (USP), has added a series of thin layer chromatography (TLC) tests for anti-infectives for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and parasitic worm infections to the Minilab's repertoire.

According to the World Health Organization, anti-infectives are the most commonly counterfeited medicines in the developing world, particularly antibiotics and antiprotozoals such as drugs for malaria.

The addition of antihelminthics drugs to treat parasitic worm infections is timely given new research which has shown that 4 per cent of samples of this type of medicine in Cambodia were counterfeit (see our article here).

The latest additions cover the following drugs: albendazole; atovaquone; cefixime; cefuroxime axetil; halofantrine; levofloxacin; moxifloxacin; proguanil; and prothionamide. The Minilab kit can now be used to test whether 52 widely-used medicines are counterfeit or substandard, including fixed-dose combination products.

Examples of the additional materials are available on the GPHF website.

Meanwhile, a video documentary showing the use of the Minilab in Kenya during the early days of the project has recently been unearthed and can be viewed here.


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Uganda buys more Minilabs