Overview

Essential Medicines safe lives; reduce suffering and improve health, but only when they are of good quality, safe, effective, available and properly used by prescribers and patients. Nevertheless, more than fifty percent of the population in the Region have no regular access to essential medicines. Many countries in the Region have developed national medicine policies but implementation of these policies remains inadequate. Medicine supply and regulatory systems are weak; financial as well as human resources are inadequate to ensure delivery of pharmaceutical services and ensure access to essential medicines. Circulation of poor quality medicines, high medicine prices, unethical promotion and irrational use of medicines poses additional challenges. Even though traditional medicine is widely used in the Region, it is insufficiently regulated and integrated into conventional health services. Data on safety, efficacy and quality of traditional medicines is limited. Traditional medicine knowledge is not protected.

Public sector expenditure on medicines remains very low, the estimated annual per capita expenditure remains below US$2 in 60% of countries in the Region. Coverage of medicines under health insurance schemes remains low or is inexistent in many countries; hence, people revert to the private sector and poor people pay high prices for their medicines out-of-pocket. Out-of-pocket payments for medicines are made worse as many countries in the Region lack effective policies to regulate medicines prices. Overall, medicine prices vary considerably between countries and within various sectors in individual countries.

With the support from international communities and donors, there has been considerable improvement in the past few years with respect to the provision of essential medicines particularly for priority diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. At 2007, over 90% of countries in the Region provided medicines free of charge for people living with HIV/AIDS, while 100% and 55% of countries provided medicines free of charge for Tuberculosis and Malaria in public health facilities respectively. Among others, pregnant women and children below the age of 5 years benefited from the supply of essential medicines in 72% and 68% of countries respectively.

The Regional essential medicine program in collaboration with other technical departments and partners, supports countries in their endeavour to develop; update and implement comprehensive national medicine policies, promote transparency and good governance in pharmaceuticals, strengthen medicine regulatory functions through adapting norms and standards; strengthen financing and pricing mechanisms, strengthen procurement and supply management systems to achieve the overall goal of national medicine policies aiming at improving the availability; affordability; quality and rational use of essential medicines and traditional medicines.