Every year, fake or substandard medications
kill more than 300,000 people worldwide.
Many of these falsified drugs are dispensed in
developing countries, where they can either
directly harm users or deprive them of needed
treatment.
Some estimates suggest that up to 30 percent
of medications available in these countries
contain substandard ingredients. Often, these
fake medications are bulked up with fillers
or contain just enough of the real active
ingredient to evade detection. And even with
the right lab equipment, detection can be
costly and time-consuming, which makes it
impractical in developing nations.
To combat this problem, Marya Lieberman and
her team at the University of Norte Dame have
created a cheap and simple paper test card
that can quickly screen suspicious medications
in real time.
They're presenting their findings at the 252nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society
The card costs less than $1, and uses a
library of chemical color tests to unmask
falsified drugs. Each card has 12 lanes separated
by wax barriers. Each lane contains a different
set of reagents to detect materials found
in active pharmaceutical ingredients.
The researchers crush a pill and rub the resulting
powder across all 12 lanes, and then dip the
bottom of the paper card in water. After just
a few minutes, distinctive colors form. The
researchers then compare the color pattern
from the sample with the color patterns obtained
from real pharmaceuticals. The comparison
can be done by eye or with an image-analysis
program on a smartphone.
Lieberman says that this new technique
could eventually allow doctors, pharmacists and maybe
even consumers in these developing countries
to quickly and easily detect fake drugs.
Headline Science is produced by the American Chemical Society.
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