The World Health Organization estimates that at least 10% of medical products (tablets, vaccines, etc.) sold in developing countries are substandard (contains less active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) than genuine medicine) or falsified (contains no API) (SF). Additionally, there are many pharmacies in these developing countries that store medicines improperly in hot, humid, and/or sunny conditions, leading to the degradation of the API. If antibiotics begin to degrade when stored improperly or after expiration, then the antibiotics become less effective at killing bacteria; this may lead to an unnecessarily prolonged illness and the development of antibiotic resistance. Thus, it is important to ensure that people around the world receive high quality antibiotics. The current ‘gold standard’ method for measuring the amount of API present in a drug is high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), a costly, time consuming method that must be done by a trained person in a laboratory setting. A Paper Analytical Device (PAD) is being proposed as an inexpensive, fast, reliable, and portable way for monitoring the quality of medicines in regions where the use of HPLC is not feasible. In this study, over 500 amoxicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanate, ampicillin, and ampicillin-cloxacillin samples collected from various regions of Nepal in the summer of 2019 were analyzed using a novel Beta-Lactam PAD, and the PADs results were verified using HPLC and Raman Spectroscopy. The PADs, HPLC, and Raman data identified several SF medicines; for example, several amoxicillin-clavulanate medicines lacked clavulanate. Further studies into the degradation process of clavulanate, a beta-lactamase inhibitor, are being done to determine if these medicines were manufactured improperly (e.g., deliberately underdosed) or if they degraded due to the hot, humid climate in Nepal. The Beta-Lactam PAD and the PADs and HPLC results of this study will be presented.

Analysis of the quality of beta-lactam antibiotics collected in Nepal

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.