Pooled sampling

Increasing access to medicines is one of EPN’s biggest priorities. But not just any medicines. As much as medicines are essential to curing or even preventing diseases, if their quality is not assured, they can become a health hazard. That is why EPN also supports the church health systems in quality assurance and proper medicines management.

In 2009, MEDS (Kenya) in cooperation with Difäm (Germany) started sampling medicines from DSOs as a Network-Project of EPN. In the first 3 rounds of the quality control measures project, 15 of the most commonly used essential medicines were tested. 16 DSOs and partners (EPN members) from 11 African countries sent a total of 140 samples to the quality control lab of MEDS in Kenya.

EPN members can read the pooled sampling report on the ressources for members page (log-in is required).

Antibiotic test kit project

Following the positive findings of the feasibility study carried out in August-September 2009 on the market potential for a simple kit to test the quality of antibiotics, DSM (a Dutch pharmaceutical company) and ICCO have continued to invest in the process of development of the kit. A steering team comprising representatives from ICCO, DSM and EPN was set up to move the process forward. This has resulted in concrete plans for 2011, amongst which is the further development of the kit and its field testing.

In January 2011, Nelleke van der Vleuten from ICCO and Tim de Graaf from DSM Netherlands visited Kenya as part of the process to explore the feasibility of developing the antibiotic test kit, a project in collaboration with EPN. They visited pharmacies in both uptown and downtown Nairobi. They also met with representatives from the Pharmacy and Poisons Board Kenya, the Dutch embassy and other potential stakeholders in Kenya.  Meetings were also held with consultants doing the feasibility study to review progress. Both the lab-based development work and market feasibility studies are ongoing.

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