Survey of Substandard and Falsified Medicines at Patent Medicine Stores in Three Local Government Areas of Benue State

Substandard and falsified medicines undermine healthcare systems, contribute to treatment failure, and pose direct patient safety risks. Patent medicine stores remain the primary medicine access point in many rural and semi-urban areas of Benue State, North Central Nigeria, but systematic surveys of medicine quality at this retail level are limited for this geopolitical zone. This study surveyed medicine quality at patent medicine stores in Makurdi, Gboko, and Otukpo local government areas of Benue State. A total of 180 medicine samples covering six tracer product categories including antimalarials, antibiotics, antihypertensives, oral rehydration salts, analgesics, and vitamins were purchased using overt and mystery shopper methods. Medicines were evaluated for NAFDAC registration authenticity, label integrity, API content by spectrophotometric methods, and dissolution performance. NAFDAC number verification failed for 22% of samples. API content was below 80% of label claim in 18% of samples, with antimalarials having the highest failure rate at 26%. Dissolution failures were detected in 14% of tablet and capsule products. Falsified packaging features including print quality and hologram anomalies were identified in 7% of samples. Samples purchased from stores in rural areas showed significantly higher non-compliance rates. These findings confirm that substandard and falsified medicines are present at a clinically significant level in patent medicine stores in the studied Benue State LGAs, necessitating intensified regulatory field surveillance. Keywords: substandard medicines, falsified medicines, patent medicine stores, Benue State, drug quality.