[Pharmaceutical regulations in Chad: assessment of drug dispensing practices in private pharmacies in N'Djamena]. / Règlementation pharmaceutique au Tchad: état de lieux des pratiques de délivrance des médicaments dans les officines privées de N'Djaména.

Introduction: the purpose of this study was to evaluate drug dispensing practices in private pharmacies in the city of N'Djamena and, specifically, (I) to describe the characteristics of dispensaries, (ii) describe dispensing practices and (iii) assess regulatory compliance when dispensing on the basis of a prescription and an advice. Methods: we conducted a cross-sectional survey from June to December 2020. Data were collected in two stages, through interviews with pharmacists and participant observation in drug delivery practices in pharmacies. Results: in total, 26 pharmacies, or 50% of pharmacies in N'Djamena, were surveyed. The main survey findings were: private pharmacies in the city of N'Djamena employed two categories of staff, namely pharmacists and auxiliary staff (pharmacy technicians, nurses and salespeople or staff with "no health qualifications". These had not been trained in a health school recognised by the Ministry of Health) to dispense medicines. Very few pharmacies (8%) had a customer confidentiality area and a order book. The three modes of delivery were observed in more or less equal proportions (30 to 40% of dispensations). Dispensing at the patient's request was slightly predominant (40%) and the majority of medicines dispensed at the patient's request and based on dispenser's advice belonged to the different tables of toxic substances (over 70%). The noted absence of the pharmacist from the pharmacy justified why 84% of patients' requests were addressed to the pharmacy assistants. Conclusion: this study shows low compliance of pharmacies with pharmaceutical regulations for proper dispensing of medicines in the city of N'Djamena. Factors related to pharmaceutical sector governance and human resources management as well as therapeutic patient education could explain this gap.

Chemical Derivatization of Commercially Available Condensed and Hydrolyzable Tannins.

Novel valorization routes for tannins were opened by the development of a simple, straightforward, robust, and flexible approach to the selective functionalization of condensed and hydrolyzable tannins. Irrespective of the different degrees of polymerization, different commercial tannins were efficiently functionalized by the generation of an ether linkage bound to a short linker carrying the desired functional group. Functionalizations could be realized at varying degrees of technical loadings, i.e., amounts of introduced tannin-alien functionalities per number of phenolic hydroxyl groups. The same strategy was found suitable for the synthesis of polyethylene glycol-functionalized tannin copolymers. Condensed tannins functionalized with carboxylic acid moieties could be converted into a tannin-oligopeptide hybrid.

Sulfited Tannin Capsules: Novel Stimuli-Responsive Delivery Systems.

Microcapsules of sulfited Acacia mearnsii tannin (AmST-MCs) were generated for the first time via the sonochemical method. Their stability profile was assessed and set in the general context of tannin microcapsules (TMCs) generated under the same experimental conditions. The analytical data gathered in this work indicate an excellent stability of TMCs over time as well as under high temperature and pressure, which is a major milestone toward the meaningful applications of TMCs in industrial, pharmaceutical, and biomedical applications in which sterilization of TMCs might be a prerequisite. Active release is shown to be efficiently triggered by varying pH and/or salinity, with different profiles for TMCs from sulfited and nonsulfited species. Surfactants also affect the stability of TMCs significantly, with effects eventually amplifiable by pH and the inherent kosmotropic and chaotropic characteristics of salt components in solutions.

A Study of the Effect of Kosmotropic and Chaotropic Ions on the Release Characteristics of Lignin Microcapsules under Stimuli-Responsive Conditions.

Stimuli-responsive behavior of lignin microcapsules (LMCs) has been investigated along with the detailed characterization of their stability profiles. The disassembly of LMCs was found to be salt species-dependent, indicating the specific relevance of inherent kosmotropic and chaotropic characteristics. For the first time, a connection between the Hofmeister series and the stability profile of lignin microscale materials is established. LMCs showed excellent stability in water and under high temperature and pressure (autoclaving conditions). Active release is efficiently triggered by pH changes and balancing chaotropic and kosmotropic effects via salinity tuning.