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Table 2 Medicine attributes essential for the correct calculations of adult equivalent treatment doses (AETDs)

From: Methods for implementing a medicine outlet survey: lessons from the anti-malarial market

Attribute

Role in AETD calculation

Notes

Generic name

Used to define the number of milligrams of active ingredient required for 1 AETD.

Also enables classification of medicines by different classes for analysis (e g, monotherapies vs combination therapies)

Strength of active ingrediets

Taken together, strength and pack size are used to calculate how many milligrams of active ingredient are present in the medicine package.

Also enables classification of medicines, most notably used to flag first-line treatments, which are defined in terms of generic name and strength.

Pack size

 

Requires different definitions for tablet and non-tablet medicines.

Is product a fixed dose combination?

One of these two attributes is required in order to establish the ratio of tablets in co-blistered medicines. This information is then used to modify the pack size value in the AETD calculation, if necessary.

 

Brand name

  
  1. Source: ACTwatch.