Malaria N° 6 - Subject N° 2

AVAILABILITY AND UTILIZATION OF ANTI-MALARIAL DRUGS AT COMMUNITY LEVEL IN SAME DISTRICT NORTH EASTERN TANZANIA
M.S. Alilio, M.L. Kamugisha, F.K. Msuya, J.L. Massaga, F.M. Salum & K.J. Njunwa

SUMMARY
This study was conducted in 12 villages of Same District north-eastern Tanzania to assess supply, demand and use of chloroquine sold by retail shops outside the existing primary health care system. Information was collected using indepth interviews with 31 kiosks and retail shop owners and semi-structured interviews with 204 randomly selected members of households. It was found that 95 % of chloroquine stocked is from private uncontrolled markets mainly from Kenya, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Zambia and some local industries. The kiosks and retail shops owners stock different brand names of chloroquine, with prices ranging from Tanzanian shillings 10 to 50 (US$ 0.02 to 0.1 respectively) per tablet. The trade names of the chlorquine stocked include Homaquine, Malaraquine, Dawaquine, Maxaquine, Shelyquine, Nivaquine and Resochin. Homaquine comprised more than a quarter fot he chloroquine brands stocked. Although most kiosks and retail shops stocked more than one chloroquine brand, details written on the containers of these brands do not show any difference in the 4-aminoquinoline contents. Ninety percent of the kiosks owners and shop keepers interviewed rely on the instruction provided by manufacturers in selling and dispensing various chloroquine brands. Only 10 % of the kiosks owners and shop keepers and 17 % of the clients knew the right dosages of chloroquine for children. These findings suggest that stringent measures should be instituted to ensure satisfactory selling of anti-malarials through open market. This could be attained through quality assurance and pricing of various brands of chloroquine. Also there is a need for educating kiosks as well as shop owners and community as a whole on the right storage, dosages and the effects of chloroquine.

KEY-WORDS: Malaria, Kiosks, Retail shops, Anti-malarials, Tanzania