Pharmacotechnical evaluation of Paracetamol issued from both legal and illicit market of Ebolowa – south region of Cameroon: A public health concern

Introduction: In Cameroon and especially in Ebolowa, the parallel and illicit sale of drugs not only promotes automedication, but also the proliferation of fake medicines. Studies on drug quality control help provide appropriate treatments and avoid the addictions and resistance. Objective: To evaluate the pharmacotechnical quality of paracetamol tablets, generic blister of 10 sold in the legal and illicit markets of the city of Ebolowa. Materials and methods: An experimental study was conducted over a period of 5 months according to the standards of current pharmacopoeias. Eight (08) drug samples consisting of 90 blisters of 10 paracetamol tablets, each collected from both legal and illegal sectors, were tested for pharmacotechnical use. The analyzes were carried out at the National Laboratory for the Quality Control of Medicines and Expertise and at the Pharmaceutical Technology Laboratory of the Institute for Medical Research and Studies of Medicinal Plants. Descriptives statistics was realize with IBM SPSS Statistics 22 and XLSTAT 2014 served to execute Student’s t test. Results: The results obtained from the analyses of 08 batches of paracetamol revealed several nonconformities: hardness (63%) that is 05 lots, labeling (12.5%) with identification of two batches from the same laboratory but with different labeling, control of disaggregation (12.5%), organoleptic character control (25%). 5 samples out of 8 (63%) were non – compliant and 4 of these 5 batches were purchased at underground market. 63% (5/8) of these samples were non-compliant and 80% (4/5) were from the "black market". Conclusion: The circulation and sale of illicit and non-compliant drugs remains a major problem in Cameroon. The highest number of detected nonconformities originated from the "black market" and from the Asian continent. The strict control of access zones, drug quality and appropriate conservation and distribution of medicines will help enchance the reduction of this phenomenon.