# \[e-drug\] Drug information service **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [May 14, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-drug-information-service/16761 "2003-05-14T20:27:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fionnuala\_Mc\_Cullagh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@Fionnuala\_Mc\_Cullagh](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/Fionnuala_Mc_Cullagh)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-drug-information-service/16761/1 "2003-05-14T20:27:31Z")
E-drug: Drug information service ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [As problems of access to independent drug information is coming up regularly, I added a couple of recent e-drug messages on the subject below Fionnuala's messages. In the e-drug archives there are many more. Really worthwhile to dig around in the archives now and then... HH] I am a VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) pharmacist from Ireland who is working with NWPSFH (North West Province Special Fund for Health) which acts as the Essential Drugs Programme for the North West Province of Cameroon. One of my roles has been to introduce a Drug Information Service to enhance rational use of essential drugs. We have gathered some basic texts such as Martindale and BNF, but would appreciate advice on how to procure additional references, preferably at as low a cost as possible. Requests to drug companies have not been very productive. We do not have our own internet access, but I do download whatever I can from a local internet cafe. I would welcome suggestions from other health care professionals on how to implement and gain acceptance of such a service (many prescribers I have approached mainly ask why a particular drug is out of stock). Fionnuala Mc Cullagh VSO Pharmacist NWPSFH-Bamenda Cameroon e-mail: fionnualamccullagh@hotmail.com --------------------- DATE: 2/25/2003 11:20 AM E-drug: WHO and training --------------------------------------------- Dear E-druggers, WHO is an international agency that is accountable to it's member states and with a limited budget. Therefore, WHO has to prioritise what it does and the member states have to agree to what it does. As a consequence, it may seem that WHO works with ministries of health to the exclusion of other agencies such as non-governmental organisations or universities. Nevertheless WHO does undertake much work with universities and non-governmental organisations as well as with ministries of health. Although WHO does not generally write textbooks for students much of the work is of direct benefit to students and others who wish to improve the health of populations. Examples are as follows and relate mainly to the field of drugs (although of course there are many other examples): (1) Many documents are available on WHO's website, [http://www.who.int/medicines](http://www.who.int/medicines) , and perhaps many university teachers are not aware of how much is there. (2) Although many textbooks already exist, in many countries there is a problem of access to them. WHO is working towards this through the Health internetwork Access to Research initiative where 2,200 journals are provided either free or at reduced rates on-line to 112 poor countries. Details of this may be found through the WHO website: [http://www.who.int](http://www.who.int) (3) WHO does organise a number of training courses on various aspects of rational use of medicines, details of which are posted on the WHO website: [http://www.who.int/medicines](http://www.who.int/medicines) (4) WHO has produced the Guide to Good Prescribing aimed specifically at medical undergraduates and does organise international courses on problem-based pharmacotherapy every year in collaboration with various partners - see the website for details. (5) The different departments of WHO produce clinical guidelines for the diseases that they work on. The department of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy is working towards the development of a web-based medicines library where the WHO model essential drug list, the model formulary and summaries of all the clinical guidelines produced by WHO will be available on the WHO medicines website (as detailed above) together with the supporting evidence and links to the full clinical guidelines. It is hoped that this will be a tremendous resource for member states and all health professionals when it is finished. Finally, we in WHO are well aware that we could be doing more and are always open to suggestions about how we might do better given the various constraints under which we work. Dr. Kathleen Holloway Medical Officer for Policy, Access and Rational Use, Department of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy, World Health Organisation, 20 Avenue Appia, Gen�ve, CH-1211 Tel: +41 22 791 2336; Fax: +41 22 791 4167 email: hollowayk@who.int DATE: 2/10/2003 5:38 PM RE: [e-drug] Donating books and journals to less developed countries E-drug: Donating books and journals to less developed countries ------------------------------------------------------------------------- BMJ 2003;326:298 ( 8 February ) Donating books and journals to less developed countries The BMA/BMJ information fund welcomes applications from institutions Both the BMA and the BMJ receive many requests for free medical books and journals from doctors and librarians in less developed countries and other areas of need. Until recently we have had no specific funding to meet these requests, and have arranged donations of secondhand journals and surplus BMJ books somewhat haphazardly. Since 2000, however, the BMA and BMJ have set aside �30 000 ($47 000; 47 000) a year, from the profits of the BMJ Publishing Group, to help institutions to choose the right health information for their users (see BMA/BMJ information fund's activity report for 2000-2 on bmj.com). The BMA/BMJ information fund does not give money but donates and sends educational materials. And because we want our donations to help as many people as possible we consider applications only from institutions rather than from individual doctors and other health workers. We ask applicants to tell us about their organisations: what they do, what other support they receive, and exactly what materials they need. In this way we can ensure, as far as possible, that the information is relevant and of high quality. The fund can provide books, journals, and CD Roms from the BMJ Publishing Group at very low cost, but it can also donate other publishers' material at discounted prices, bought through the BMJ Bookshop. The fund does not have a distribution network. We arrange and pay for postage of consignments and always ask applicants for advice on the best way to send them. In this way we have provided books requested by medical centres and libraries in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Somaliland, Uganda, Nigeria, Iraq, Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. But we realised early on that supporting existing distributors would be a good way to use at least part of the money. That's why we have worked closely with a British charity, Book Aid International. Book Aid has already distributed across sub-Saharan Africa 3500 copies of the newly revised ABC of AIDS, which the fund paid for as a special print run.(1) A similar scheme is now under way for the new BMJ book International Child Health. In addition, the fund has allowed Book Aid to come to the BMJ warehouse and choose a variety of books to send to their extensive network of needy organisations. Although the information fund is primarily for organisations in poorer countries, we have also donated requested books to two centres in the United Kingdom. Both help refugee doctors prepare for the United Kingdom's Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) test, a cause that the fund is happy to support. We haven't been able to say yes to everyone. We couldn't fund some applications, either because we were unable to gather sufficient information about the institutions concerned or because the projects they described were too far removed from our terms of reference. We have also turned down requests from individuals, although we have directed them to a scheme that matches them with BMJ readers who want to donate their used journals and books directly.(2) The BMA/BMJ information fund is one of several initiatives to plug the information gap between rich and poor countries. The BMJ and studentBMJ are freely available on the web to everybody worldwide. And more than 100 of the world's poorest countries now have free web access to the electronic versions of the BMJ Publishing Group's 23 specialist journals and its evidence based compendium Clinical Evidence.(3) Many other publishers offer similar web access to well over 1000 of the world's best biomedical journals, either directly or through schemes such as FreeMedicalJournals.com (www.freemedicaljournals.com) and the Health InterNetwork: Access to Research Initiative (HINARI).(4) These schemes will be of limited usefulness, however, if the information they provide isn't relevant to the people who need to use it in their learning and practice. (5,6) The BMA/BMJ information fund is trying to get round this by donating exactly what people tell us they want. If you would like to apply to the fund on behalf of a medical school, library, hospital, health centre, or medical association in an area of great need, please email us a detailed request, using the application form on bmj.com. Trish Groves, assistant editor. BMJ, (tgroves@bmj.com) Sallie Nicholas, head, International Department, BMA. John Hudson, publisher. 1. Book Aid International. Annual review 2001-2002. www.bookaid.org/resources/downloads/ar.pdf (accessed 6 Nov 2002). 2. Minerva. BMJ 2001; 322: 1498[Free Full Text]. 3. Smith R, Williamson A. BMJ journals free to the developing world. BMJ , 2002:324:380. 4. Health InterNetwork. Health InterNetwork Access to Research Inititative. www.healthinternetwork.org (accessed 6 Nov 2002). 5. Vass A. Medical journals can reduce global health inequality, conference told. BMJ 2002; 324: 444[Free Full Text]. 6. Shaywitz DA, Ausiello DA. The 15% solution for majority health concerns. Nature webdebates. www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/health.html (accessed 6 Nov 2002). -- To send a message to E-Drug, write to: e-drug@healthnet.org To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@healthnet.org in the body of the message type: subscribe e-drug OR unsubscribe e-drug To contact a person, send a message to: e-drug-help@healthnet.org Information and archives: [http://www.essentialdrugs.org/edrug](http://www.essentialdrugs.org/edrug)