Theme: Clinical Research Year: 2025
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Background: The Liverpool Hepatology Drug-Drug Interaction (DDI) website is a globally available resource for checking drug interactions with viral hepatitis treatment. The website is extensively used in North America and Europe – this study aimed to determine use in Africa, including comedication trends with a focus on recreational drugs and South Africa. Methods: DDI searches were recorded using Mixpanel, by country (IP address) and comedication searched. Data were extracted for total number of interactions searched, number of interactions searched in Africa, comedications searched in the top twenty countries by use in Africa, and comedications searched in South Africa. Global stats were obtained for 1/1/24 – 31/12/24; data for Africa were 1/10/20 – 24/2/25. Unknown IP addresses were listed as ‘undefined’. Data were analysed with R 4.3.1 in RStudio. Results: During 2024, 3,788,994 DDI checks were made, of which 10,808 (0.29 %) were in Africa. The top five African countries were Egypt (23,599 interactions), Morocco (9,650), Algeria (7,281), South Africa (5,131), and Cameroon (3,674). The top five comedication classes were hypertension/heart failure agents (6,518), antibacterials (3,441), gastrointestinal agents (3,221), other (2,875), and beta blockers (2,796). Of recreational drugs, the top five were methamphetamine (202), cannabis (190), ecstasy (160), alcohol (154), and cocaine (150). In South Africa, the top five comedications were dolutegravir (119), amlodipine (95), efavirenz (85), olanzapine (75), and haloperidol (70). Heroin, alcohol, methamphetamine, methadone, and ecstasy were amongst the top twenty in South Africa. Conclusion: Uptake of the DDI website in Africa is low at 0.29 % of interactions searched, although usage of the website in Egypt was substantially higher than other African countries. Searches for interactions with antibacterials are more prevalent in Africa compared with searches globally. In South Africa, interactions with HIV antiretrovirals and recreational drugs were common. Methamphetamine was the most searched recreational drug in Africa. |