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Are we doing enough to prevent poor-quality antimalarial medicines in the developing world?

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, May 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (90th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (87th percentile)

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2 news outlets
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12 X users
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1 Facebook page

Citations

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16 Dimensions

Readers on

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102 Mendeley
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Title
Are we doing enough to prevent poor-quality antimalarial medicines in the developing world?
Published in
BMC Public Health, May 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12889-018-5521-7
Pubmed ID
Authors

Erin J. Walker, Gregory M. Peterson, James Grech, Evie Paragalli, Jackson Thomas

Abstract

Malaria is a deadly parasitic disease that affects more than 3 billion people worldwide, in predominantly resource-poor countries. Despite malaria being preventable and treatable, a large number of adults and children, mostly in Africa, die from this disease each year. One contributor to needless morbidity and mortality is the production and distribution of poor-quality antimalarial medicines; indeed, it is estimated that over 122,000 deaths of children under 5 years of age in sub-Saharan countries were caused by poor-quality antimalarial medicines, in 2013 alone. Poor-quality medicines include those that are deliberately falsified for monetary gain and may contain incorrect amounts or even no active ingredients at all, as well as products that are inadequate due to poor compliance to conventional quality standards and medicines that have degraded over time. Across a number of studies it has been reported that 4-92% of antimalarials tested are poor quality. This represents a massive risk to the population subjected to the use of these medicines, in the form of more severe and prolonged illness, additional costs to individuals who already have very little money, and lack of confidence in treatments. The continuing circulation of poor-quality medicines results from a number of factors, including insufficient regulatory capacity in susceptible countries, inadequate funding to perform regulatory functions, poor coordination between regulatory authorities, and inefficient import/export control systems. To combat the distribution of poor-quality medicines a number of organisations have developed guidelines for the procurement of antimalarials, and programs to educate consumers about the risks of poor-quality medicines and incentivise retailers to identify and report falsified medicines. The development of new technologies to quickly identify poor-quality medicines in the field is also essential, and some significant advances have been made. There has been considerable improvement in the delivery of high-quality antimalarials to those who need them; however, there is still an urgent need for a collective response by the international community, political leaders, regulatory bodies, and pharmaceutical companies. This should include political commitment for enhanced research and development funding, such as for new innovative track-and-trace field devices, and international efforts to strengthen and harmonise drug regulation practices.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 12 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 102 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 102 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 13 13%
Student > Master 13 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 12 12%
Student > Doctoral Student 7 7%
Student > Postgraduate 6 6%
Other 12 12%
Unknown 39 38%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 14 14%
Medicine and Dentistry 10 10%
Nursing and Health Professions 7 7%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 5 5%
Chemistry 4 4%
Other 20 20%
Unknown 42 41%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 26. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 July 2022.
All research outputs
#1,259,663
of 22,962,258 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#1,364
of 14,960 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#29,821
of 326,679 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#40
of 318 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,962,258 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 14,960 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 326,679 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 318 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.