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Sarah Farhat World Bank
The Medicine Quality Research Group at the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory, the Center for Global Health Research and Laos-Oxford Mahosot Hospital Research Unit, has launched a new interactive digital tool to support regulators making implementation decisions on devices that detect substandard and falsified medicines.
About one in ten medicines in low- and middle-income countries are substandard or falsified. They may contain the wrong, too little, too much, or no active ingredient—sometimes with fatal consequences, as seen in recent child deaths from contaminated cough syrup.
National and international bodies have been working to identify and track the spread of these dangerous medicines. However, regulators face a complex landscape: dozens of portable devices to screen the quality of medicines are currently available, each with different strengths and weaknesses, and no single device can reliably detect all types of poor-quality medicines.
Developed with direct input from medicine regulatory authorities and other key stakeholders in the field, the newly launched DAshboard for Field-pOrtable screening Devices usIng scientific Literature evidence (DAFODIL) brings together available scientific evidence in a single platform, enabling comparison across devices, and helping regulators identify the option best suited to their needs.
Dr Céline Caillet, deputy head of Medicine Quality Research Group, said: “We are delighted to launch the DAFODIL platform, which offers regulators scientific evidence to help compare portable screening devices in an increasingly crowded and complex field”.
“This work is an important step forward in improving detection of substandard and falsified medical products, and could play a key role in supporting the World Health Organization’s strategy to prevent, detect and respond to harmful medical products.”
The development of the DAFODIL dashboard was funded by the Gates Foundation.