The WWARN Antimalarial Quality Surveyor

Over the last decade there has been a resurgence of awareness that poor medicine quality is a vitally important, but neglected, public health issue. A growing number of studies have highlighted the importance of drug quality with examples from all over the world. This is an important problem, not only for antimalarials but for all types of medication. The use of poor quality medicines can result in deaths amongst those who would have otherwise survived their infection. They erode public confidence in medicines; have dire economic consequences for patients, their families, health systems and pharmaceutical producers. Of particular relevance are those containing sub-therapeutic amounts of the active pharmaceutical ingredients that can engender drug resistance.