A qualitative exploration of counterfeit, substandard, spurious, and adulterated drugs in Pakistan: A perspective of drug law experts Article Swipe
Fauzia Butt
,
Hamid Saeed
,
Zobia Mubarak
,
Syed Atif Raza
,
Usman Rashid Malik
,
Furqan Khurshid Hashmi
·
YOU?
·
· 2025
· Open Access
·
· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322188
YOU?
·
· 2025
· Open Access
·
· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322188
Objectives The issue of quality of medicine is a worldwide phenomenon and counterfeit, substandard, spurious, and adulterated (CSSA) drugs are a substantial threat to public health. This issue is rampant in the context of low-middle-income countries such as Pakistan. The current study involved a phenomenology-based qualitative approach to explore these drugs’ perception, knowledge, practice, and issues in combating this menace. Methods A semi-structured interview guide was developed. Eleven drug law experts were interviewed through a purposive sampling technique. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using a framework analysis approach, yielding seven distinct themes. Results The results showed that CSSA drugs are a serious public health threat and drug law experts confirmed its prevalence in the market. They indicated shortcomings in legislation up to the extent of undue amendments, failure to interpret and implement the law by regulators, ineffective law enforcement machinery, the sub-optimum performance of quality control boards, drug testing laboratories, and courts, and the dubious role of rogue middlemen and wholesalers in drug supply chain and corruption were salient issues highlighted. Conclusion The study revealed that proper drug surveillance, ensuring the presence of a pharmacist, enforcing the law, securing the supply chain, infrastructure for a drug control regime, and training regulators can help tackle this problem.
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Metadata
- Type
- article
- Language
- en
- Landing Page
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322188
- OA Status
- gold
- Cited By
- 2
- References
- 41
- Related Works
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- OpenAlex ID
- https://openalex.org/W4409760342
All OpenAlex metadata
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https://openalex.org/W4409760342Canonical identifier for this work in OpenAlex
- DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322188Digital Object Identifier
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A qualitative exploration of counterfeit, substandard, spurious, and adulterated drugs in Pakistan: A perspective of drug law expertsWork title
- Type
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articleOpenAlex work type
- Language
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enPrimary language
- Publication year
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2025Year of publication
- Publication date
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2025-04-24Full publication date if available
- Authors
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Fauzia Butt, Hamid Saeed, Zobia Mubarak, Syed Atif Raza, Usman Rashid Malik, Furqan Khurshid HashmiList of authors in order
- Landing page
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322188Publisher landing page
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YesWhether a free full text is available
- OA status
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goldOpen access status per OpenAlex
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322188Direct OA link when available
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Counterfeit, Counterfeit Drugs, Legislation, Context (archaeology), Law enforcement, Qualitative research, Public health, Drug control, Business, Enforcement, Law, Medicine, Political science, Sociology, Nursing, Social science, Paleontology, BiologyTop concepts (fields/topics) attached by OpenAlex
- Cited by
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2Total citation count in OpenAlex
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2025: 2Per-year citation counts (last 5 years)
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41Number of works referenced by this work
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10Other works algorithmically related by OpenAlex
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