E-DRUG: Ensuring access to essential drugs in Africa
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[The press release below is written by Mr Adefela, WHO/AFRO press officer
who is attending the 3rd Anglophone African Essential Drug Programme
Managers Meeting in Grabouw,
South Africa. WB]
WHO-AFRO PRESS RELEASE
ENSURING ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL DRUGS IN AFRICA
African governments and their partners in the health sector must emphasise
equity, availability and affordability in their drug policies and
programmes in order to ensure that people have access to essential drugs.
This is the consensus among essential drugs programme managers currently
attending a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, on the Intensified
Essential Drugs Programme for the African Region.
Addressing participants at the meeting on Tuesday, Dr Jonathan Quick, WHO
Director of Essential Drugs Programme, said that the organization intended,
among other things, to "focus on priority problems, the poor and
vulnerable" in the implementation of its programme in the next four years.
He pointed out that in many countries less than 50% of the population had
regular access to essential drugs and commitment to public drug funding was
low.
He emphasised that "public financing and social health insurance are the
best ways to achieve equity, but this requires effort."
He recommended rational selection and use of drugs, sustainable financing,
affordable prices and reliable supply systems as ways of achieving
equitable access to essential drugs.
Dr Eric Goemaere of Medecins Sans Frontieres, which is carrying out a
campaign to promote access to essential drugs, also addressed the group. He
told them that pharmaceutical research and development were now focused on
the needs of the most promising market, the developed countries. At the
same time, less and less attention was being given to the needs of the
developing countries where communicable diseases are still the leading
cause of deaths, he added.
He said that some communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and malaria,
were showing growing resistance to certain drugs and therefore urged more
active review of the essential drugs list.
As a way of ensuring access to essential drugs, he recommended that African
governments identify good quality sources and, with partners like WHO,
secure production, availability and affordability.
Another speaker, Dr Wilbert Bannenberg, of the WHO/South African Drug
Action Programme, warned that the new system being introduced by the World
Trade Organization and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights would have a negative effect on drug
availability.
"It will weaken local production, by making it difficult for local
industries to compete against the multinationals, and concentrate
production in the industrialised countries," he said.
To ensure equitable access to essential drugs, the group recommended a
number of measures. These include rational drug use; good financial
management; introduction of price control for essential and vital drugs;
elimination of taxes and duties on essential drugs and raw materials for
them; and joint bulk purchasing of essential drugs for priority health
problems by countries.
Victor Adefela
WHO/AFRO information officer
adefelav@whoafr.org
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