[e-drug] Pharmaceutical Compounding and Access to Medicines

e-drug
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E-DRUG: Pharmaceutical Compounding and Access to Medicines
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Dear E-druggers

Access to medicines is a major problem especially in developing countries with little manufacturing capacities. Pharmaceutical compounding, which several years ago was almost completely replaced by mass large scale manufacturing of medicines may still be of importance where primary ingredients of good quality can be obtained.

My experience is that pharmaceutical compounding has created opportunities for patients to obtain cheaper effective medicines like podophyllin paint whose commercially available brand is about 10 times the cost of the compounded equivalent. This medicine is used to treat warts, a condition that has become more common with immunocompromised patients. Similarly, discomfort resultng from urinary tract infection is a recurrent problem. Often this discomfort has been treated as resurgence of UTI. However, potassium citrate mixture is the solution. This is a locally compounded product whose branded equivalent cannot be found in Cameroon.

I would like to stimulate the interest of most e-druggers on the importance of compounding as an essential tool to improving access to medicines and thus enhancing the quality of life of patients.
What do you think about this?

Regards

Robert Chana
Pharmacist
Cameroon
robert chana <chana_robert@yahoo.co.uk>

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E-DRUG: Pharmaceutical Compounding and Access to Medicines (2)
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Robert,

You are right. However this can be done in a pharmacy of a special
big/referral hospital used to treat the specific infections or else one
pharmacy in a particular town can voluntarily decide to make these
preparations.

Such preparations require high hygienic standards in the compounding area,
stringent procedures to import/purchase and store raw materials,
etc...causing many to lose interest.

I know one pharmacy in Dar es Salaam -Tanzania that has devoted in making
such preparations. It is not easy to do this in every health
facility/pharmacy due to the above reasons I have mentioned and certainly
due to lack of enough pharmaceutical staff in our settings.

Frank Komakoma
Community Pharmacist
Dar es Salaam
Tanzania
Frank Komakoma <fkomakoma@gmail.com>