Profile of medicines prepared by the community pharmacies with Special Authorization

Abstract

In the last ten years, the occurrence of diseases and health injuries, including deaths, in patients who had taken medicines prepared in community pharmacies have brought back into notice the quality of medicines in Brazil. This work analyzed the profile of the allopathic medicines prepared by the community pharmacies, existing at those time and located in Nova Friburgo city, Rio de Janeiro, by the Special Authorization granted by the National Health Surveillance Agency – Anvisa (Regulation SVS/MS no. 344/98). This investigation was performed by means of a documental research on the characteristics considered as relevant to the study. For this purpose, the data recorded in November of 2006 were evaluated, extracted from the Prescriptions Books of the pharmacies which had been licensed to prepare the controlled substances. A total of 12,253 formulas were assessed; a low prevalence of officinal formulas (< 1%) and a high prevalence of medicines in capsules type (83%) were found. The capsules formulations were composed by only one active component, and they were converged on 15 substances, for preparing antidepressant, anorexigenic, antipsychotic and antihypertensive drugs. From the public health aspect, the assessed medicines profile might represent a potential sanitary risk for their safety and efficacy.