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The availability of poor quality medi- cines -- i.e. medicinal products that are substandard, spurious, falsely labelled, falsified or counterfeit, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) -- has become an issue of public health concern. Such medicines can jeopardize patient safety, lead to treatment failure and to the development of drug resis- tance1,2 and represent a waste of financial resources.3
The problem of poor quality medi- cines is particularly widespread and potentially more devastating in low- income countries.4--7 It is therefore ex- tremely important to strengthen such countries' capacity for quality assur- ance (QA) and quality control (QC) of medicines. However, many low-income countries lack the resources to develop appropriate regulatory frameworks and the necessary QA and QC systems.7
In addition to good QC, public, transparent access to reliable state, regional and global data on the qual- ity of medicines is also a necessity.8 To fulfil this need, in 2011 the Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) pro- gramme -- funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Unit- ed States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) -- introduced the Medicines Qual- ity Database (MQDB). The public and freely accessible online tool that tracks medicines tested for quality in selected countries in Africa, Latin America and south-eastern Asia is available at: http:// www.usp.org/around-world/pqm-uspu- said/medicines-quality-database-mqdb
A unique feature of the MQDB is that the protocols used to gather data for the sampling and analysis of the medicines follow standard guidelines.9--11 This makes the data comparable across countries and enhances their technical quality, validity and reliability. In addi- tion, all records are thoroughly evalu- ated by PQM staff for completeness and accuracy before being included...