Abstract:

Introduction: In Tanzania ADDO program achieved national wide in June 2013 the goals of ADDO is to improve accessibility. Affordability, quality of medicine and pharmaceutical services in retail drug where there is few or no pharmacy. Who select drugs that nursing mothers needs to take precaution due to side effect to their infant. Example of this drugs are ciprofloxacillin, tetracycline and chlomphenicol. This drugs when ingested by mothers it seem to appear in milk depending in the relative infant dose (RID) and their characteristics.

Methodology: Cross section method by which questionnaire was used to collect information from ADDO dispensers in Ngara district found in Kagera region.

Results: A total of 52 ADDO shops out of 57 which in Ngara district were used in this study, female was 67.3% and male was 32.7%. The age group participated was from 20-70 years in malaria status, married dispensers was 67.3% and single was 32.7%. Level of education was as follows. Standard seven was 23.1%, o-level was 64.7% and high level was 5.8%. 32.7% had no any knowledge about drugs that excreted through milk and may cause effect to the infant at all. The remaining percentage had idea about the drugs. From all dispensers whom had knowledge, only 14.9% had moderate knowledge and 42.9% had poor knowledge.

Discussion: This study show that majority of ADDO dispensers have low knowledge about drugs that excreted through milk. For issue of education level, majority of dispensers of standard seven had poor knowledge compared to that with O-level and high level. This is due to the reason that some of shops employed untrained staff who had not even ADDO training.

Conclusion: Majority of ADDO dispensers have low knowledge about this drugs as we had seen drugs excreted through breast milk to nursing mothers may cause problems to infants.