Quality assurance and evaluation of medicines are paramount for monitoring the distribution of substandard and fake medicines in the drug supply chains and ensuring the desired therapeutic efficacy and safety to the patients. This study was undertaken to evaluate some quality parameters of seven brands of ciprofloxacin hydrochloride (HCl) 500 mg caplets marketed in Kaduna metropolis. Identity, weight variation, disintegration, friability, thickness, diameter, and antimicrobial study were the conducted tests to assess the quality attributes and antimicrobial activity of the brands. The tests were performed according to official specifications. Ciprofloxacin HCl caplet samples were randomly purchased from pharmacy
outlets and patent medicine stores. All the brands of ciprofloxacin HCl caplets complied with the official specifications for weight variation, disintegration, friability, thickness, and diameter tests. All the brands had shown disintegration time within 1 to 11 min, and friability value below 0.7%. For the antimicrobial study, the inhibition zone diameter (mm) produced by 5µg/mL concentration of each sample showed that all the samples satisfied the standard specifications. All seven brands of ciprofloxacin HCl caplets being marketed in Kaduna metropolis have demonstrated satisfactory physical quality attributes and antimicrobial activity, hence, the brands can be used interchangeably. The statistical analysis indicated significant differences in the assessed parameters between the brands (p > 0.05).
Key words: Quality control assessment, Ciprofloxacin caplets, Kaduna, Substandard drugs, Antimicrobial
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