Antimalarial Drugs Prescribing in Dar es Salaam

Abstract

A retrospective survey of antimalarial prescribing by health care providers was carried out in four dispensaries to investigate three important parameters namely: commonly prescribed antimalarials, laboratory identification for malarial parasites and weighing patients prior to antimalarial prescribing by health providers. The study revealed that 70% of the patients had received chloroquine while 30% received other antimalarial drugs such as sulphalene/pyrimethamine (metakelfin), sulphadoxine/pyrimethamine (fansidar), quinine, and a combination of chloroquine and co-trimoxazole. The most preferred mode of administration for chloroquine was the intramuscular route (86%) and oral (14%). For quinine the intramuscular route accounted for 65%, slow intravenous infusion (16%) and oral (19%). Treatment of 80% cases were based on laboratory parasite identification and 20% were based on clinical diagnosis. It was also indicated that, when weight was used as a basis for dosage regimens of chloroquine, 9% of all the patients received the correct dose, 16% were overdosed, while 75% were under-dosed. The correlation coefficient between doses and body weights was poor for weights above 60 kg. There was a statistically significant association between the laboratory parasite identification and prescribing of antimalarial drugs.