{ "abstract": "The circulation of substandard and falsified (SF) medical products, including medicines, vaccines, and medical devices, continues to impact health of populations worldwide. Meanwhile, surveillance of SF products and data sharing are limited in most of the world, and incidents are rarely published in accessible databases. We describe here the Medicine Quality Monitoring Globe system (MQM Globe) for capturing, curating, characterising, and disseminating online media reports relating to SF products. The system consists of the curation environment and the Web application. Online reports are acquired from search engines, direct feeds, and targeted extraction, in five languages. They then pass a series of automated content characterisation steps to filter and label them by relevance, location, and product. Reports are then reviewed by a trained curator staff, before being made available through a visualisation Web application. Over the study period from July 2018 through December 2024, we identified 11,000 relevant distinct SF incidents, across a broad range of geography, products, and categories. The automated relevance classifier exhibited precision of 37%, recall 90%, and F1-score 52%, for English-language content. The information captured by the MQM Globe is publicly available and can help inform public health authorities as situations emerge. It is the only publicly available repository of open source intelligence specifically on SF medical products. It can be used as an informational tool to trigger intelligence-led activities across law enforcement, customs and Medicine Regulatory Authorities. Evidence before this study: The World Health Organization estimated that approximately 10.5% of medicines in low- and middle-income countries are substandard or falsified (SF). However, there is limited evidence on the extent of the problem, due to its nature, the weak regulation capacity in many poor-resourced countries, the complexity of global supply chains, and lack of awareness on the issue. To date there has been little analysis of publicly available online media reporting on events related to SF medical products. Added value of this study: This article describes the development and assessment of a publicly available online platform, the Medicine Quality Monitoring Globe, for monitoring news media and regulatory agency information related to SF medical products events. This active and timely system curates and organises reports in five languages. Implications of all the available evidence: This article introduces a tool that offers a new source of data for better understanding the global challenges related to SF medicinal products, and serves as an early warning system for incidents that may require investigation and action from regulatory authorities, health professionals, researchers and the public.", "abstract_shown": true, "affiliations": [ "LexiGraph corporation, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America", "Medicine Quality Research Group, NDM Centre for Global Health Research, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom", "Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust Research Unit (LOMWRU), Microbiology Laboratory, Mahosot Hospital, Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic", "Infectious Diseases Data Observatory, NDM Centre for Global Health Research, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, United Kingdom", "Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom", "Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom" ], "article_type": "Research Article", "arxiv": null, "author_total": 20, "authors": [ { "affs": [ 0 ], "name": "Clark C. Freifeld" }, { "affs": [ 1 ], "name": "Kerlijn Van Assche" }, { "affs": [ 2 ], "name": "Alberto Olliaro" }, { "affs": [ 3 ], "name": "Martial Battain" }, { "affs": [ 4 ], "name": "Inthapavanh Kitignavong" }, { "affs": [ 5 ], "name": "Vayouly Vidhamaly" }, { "name": "Phonepasith Boupha" }, { "name": "Kem Boutsamay" }, { "name": "Ngan Thi Do" }, { "name": "Konnie Bellingham" }, { "name": "Viengsavanh Pimxayvong" }, { "name": "Thitthiphone Olinh" }, { "name": "Ana Rosado Olmo" }, { "name": "Jingying Xu" }, { "name": "Shan Jiang" }, { "name": "Andrea Soult" }, { "name": "Southida Insal" }, { "name": "Philippe J. Guérin" }, { "name": "Paul N. Newton" }, { "name": "Céline Caillet" } ], "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/10yn9mgk8b4vt.bib", "cited_by": 0, "doi": "10.1371/journal.pdig.0001648", "fulltext_url": "https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pdig.0001648", "id": "10yn9mgk8b4vt", "issns": [ "2767-3170" ], "landing_url": "https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pdig.0001648", "language": null, "licence": "CC-BY-4.0", "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0", "licence_source": "journal", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "metadata_licence": null, "native_subjects": [ [ "openalex", "2739|Pharmaceutical Quality and Counterfeiting" ], [ "plos", "/Biology and life sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive science/Cognitive psychology/Intelligence" ], [ "plos", "/Biology and life sciences/Psychology/Cognitive psychology/Intelligence" ], [ "plos", "/Computer and information sciences/Computer networks/Internet" ], [ "plos", "/Earth sciences/Geography" ], [ "plos", "/Medicine and health sciences/Medical conditions/Infectious diseases/Infectious disease control/Vaccines" ], [ "plos", "/Medicine and health sciences/Public and occupational health" ], [ "plos", "/People and places/Population groupings/Professions/Analysts" ], [ "plos", "/Research and analysis methods/Database and informatics methods/Information retrieval" ], [ "plos", "/Social sciences/Law and legal sciences/Regulations" ], [ "plos", "/Social sciences/Psychology/Cognitive psychology/Intelligence" ] ], "openalex": "W7213253954", "pdf_url": "https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pdig.0001648&type=printable", "pmcid": null, "pmid": null, "published": "2026-09-15", "publisher": "Public Library of Science", "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/10yn9mgk8b4vt.ris", "sources": [ { "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:49Z", "native_id": "10.1371/journal.pdig.0001648", "source": "plos", "url": "https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pdig.0001648" } ], "subjects": [ { "field": "biology", "origin": "plos:neuroscience", "subfield": "neuroscience" }, { "field": "medicine", "origin": "plos:public and occupational health", "subfield": "epidemiology-public-health" }, { "field": "medicine", "origin": "plos:infectious diseases", "subfield": "infectious-disease" } ], "title": "The Medicine Quality Monitoring Globe: A public health intelligence system for collecting and curating reports of substandard and falsified medical products from publicly available Internet news media", "title_text": "The Medicine Quality Monitoring Globe: A public health intelligence system for collecting and curating reports of substandard and falsified medical products from publicly available Internet news media", "type": "peer-reviewed", "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:49Z", "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/10yn9mgk8b4vt", "venue": "PLOS Digital Health", "versions": [] }