340 Where There Is No Doctor 2011 Green Pages
Dosage Information:
HOW FRACTIONS ARE SOMETIMES WRITTEN
1 tablet = one tablet =
½ tablet = half a tablet =
1 ½ tablets = one and a half tablets =
¼ tablet = one quarter or one fourth of a tablet =
1⁄8 tablet = one eighth of a tablet (dividing it
into 8 equal pieces and taking 1 piece) =
Deciding Dosage By How Much A Person Weighs
In these pages most instructions for dosage are given according to the age of a
person—so that children get smaller doses than adults. However, it is more exact
to determine dosage according to a person’s weight. Information for doing this is
sometimes included briefly in parentheses ( ), for use of health workers who have
scales. If you read. . .
(100 mg./kg./day),
this means 100 mg. per kilogram of body weight per day. In other words, during a
24 hour period you give 100 mg. of the medicine for each kilogram the person weighs.
For example, suppose you want to give aspirin to a boy with rheumatic fever who
weighs 36 kilograms. The recommended dose of aspirin for rheumatic fever is
100 mg./kg./day. So multiply:
100 mg. x 36 = 3600 mg.
The boy should get 3600 mg. of aspirin a day. One aspirin tablet contains 300 mg. of
aspirin, 3600 mg. comes to 12 tablets. So give the boy 2 tablets 6 times a day
(or 2 tablets every 4 hours).
This is one way to figure the dosages for different medicines. For more information
on measuring and deciding on dosages, see Chapter 8.
Note to educators and planners of health care programs and to local distributors of
this book:
If this book is to be used in training programs for village health workers or is
distributed by a local health care program, information about local names and
prices of medicines should accompany the book.
Local distributors are encouraged to duplicate a sheet with this information, so
that it can be copied into the book by the user. Wherever possible, include local
sources for generic or low-cost medicines and supplies. (See “Buying Supplies for
the Medicine Kit,” page 333.)