Substandard Pfizer product recalled in Ghana

Ghana's medicines regulatory authority has ordered Pfizer to recall an antimalarial product made at a plant in Senegal because it was substandard.

Ghana' Food and Drugs Board said post-market surveillance activities found that two batches of Camoquin Plus Pediatric suspension (amodiaquine/artesunate) were substandard and should not be dispensed since administration to children with malaria "may lead to severe life-threatening complications or death."

The two batches - numbered 985 and 986 and expiring in November 2011 - were reportedly made at Pfizer's facility in Dakar, Senegal, and the FDB says "further investigations are ongoing and regulatory sanctions shall be applied to the Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company for flouting Section 14 of the Food and Drugs Law."

Ghana has an ongoing drive to monitor the domestic market for substandard and counterfeit antimalarials as part of its Medicines Quality Monitoring programme. Last November the MQM uncovered substandard and counterfeit versions of 13 malaria drugs and initiated a nationwide recall (see Ghanaian surveillance programme uncovers fake antimalarials).