Survey and analysis of the availability and affordability of essential drugs in Hefei based on WHO / HAI standard survey
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Survey and analysis of the availability and affordability of essential drugs in Hefei based on WHO / HAI standard survey methods Zuojun Dong, Qiucheng Tao and Guojun Sun*
Abstract Background: The 2018 edition of the National Essential drugs List came into effect in September 2018. Relevant policies require that all primary medical and health institutions should supply national essential drugs, while secondary and tertiary medical and health institutions should supply a certain percentage of essential drugs. Methods: Our research used the standard methods of WHO and HAI, selected 50 basic drugs, combined with the actual situation of Hefei City, selected 30 medical institutions and 30 pharmacies, conducted drug availability and affordability studies. Results: The availability of the lowest-price generics (LPGs) of essential drug in Hefei is much higher than that of the Originator brands (OBs); the overall affordability is better, but there is a large gap between the affordability levels of OBs and LPGs. OBs are relatively poorly affordable. Conclusion: The implementation of the national essential drug system in Hefei has achieved certain results, but there is still a gap from the expected target. It is recommended to update and adjust the list of essential drugs in accordance with the demand for clinical medicines, ensure that medical and health institutions at all levels supply essential drugs, popularize knowledge of essential drugs, and moderately adjust the price of OBs to reduce the medication burden. Keywords: Hefei, Essential drugs, Availability, Affordability
Background WHO proposes that essential medicines should be necessary for public health, and should be accessible at all times, and be applied to all levels of society in appropriate dosage forms. However, according to the World Health Report 2000, about one-third of the world’s population still lacks access to essential medicines. * Correspondence: [email protected] The authors claim that none of the material in the paper has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. Weuse the BMC system to submit manuscripts instead of ORCID. Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Despite some health policies aimed at addressing high levels of medical expenses, the high cost of medical services and medicines is still considered to be the main obstacle to access to health care. In 2003, the World Health Organization and the International Health Action (HAI) published a manual describing standard methods to measure drug prices to help policy makers clearly identify purchase prices and identify any major issues in their policies. Therefore, medical institutions at all levels should ensure the accessibility of essential medicines, especially essential medicines for the treatment of common diseases and high incidence [1].
© The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distributio
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