Pharmaceutical quality assurance of local private distributors: a secondary analysis in 13 low-income and middle-income countries.

Introduction: The rapid globalisation of the pharmaceutical production and distribution has not been supported by harmonisation of regulatory systems worldwide. Thus, the supply systems in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) remain exposed to the risk of poor-quality medicines. To contribute to estimating this risk in the private sector in LMICs, we assessed the quality assurance system of a convenient sample of local private pharmaceutical distributors.

Fighting poor-quality medicines in low- and middle-income countries: the importance of advocacy and pedagogy.

The globalization of pharmaceutical production has not been accompanied by a strengthening and harmonization of the regulatory systems worldwide. Thus, the global market is characterized today by a situation of multiple standards, and patients in low- and middle-income countries are exposed to the risk of receiving poor-quality medicines. Among those who first raised the alarm on this problem, there were pioneering humanitarian groups, who were in a privileged position to witness the gap in quality of medicines between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries.