COMPARATIVE BIO-AVAILABILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT BRANDS OF CHLOROQUINE AVAILABLE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The disintegration, dissolution and bio-availability characteristics of six of the most popular brands of chloroquine used in Nigeria were determined in order to test the hypothesis that there are no significant differences among the different brands. The disintegration times of all the six brands ranged from 8-9 to 40-4 min while the dissolution times ranged from 17-5 to 60 mm. All passed the U.S. Pharmacopoiea (USP) XX disintegration test. Bio-availability studies done on two brands, Avloclor (ICI) with the fastest dissolution rate and Pfizerquinc (Pfizer) with the slowest dissolution rate, showed similar areas under the curve (AUC). Furthermore, their peak height concentration (Cmax) and time of peak height concentration (Tnux) did not show any significant differences. Consequently, statements about any of these six brands of cloroquine having a greater eff.cacy than the other may be pure conjecture.