WHO Medicines Strategy 2008 - 2013
Essential medicines are an important component of health systems and primary health care. While not being an end in themselves no health system can function without them.
Please refer, via the below-mentioned link, to the World Health Organization's Continuity and Change - Implementing the WHO Medicines Strategy, 2008-2013. This strategy is closely aligned with the World Health Organization (WHO) Mid-Term Strategic Plan 2008-2013 and with the current global strategic landscape in medicines and health systems (page 8). The document's title reflects the fact that it provides a balance between important and unique WHO functions that we will continue to perform and some new areas for development in response to changing needs. A summary overview of areas of continuity and change is given in Table 3 on pages 12-13, with an indication of priorities.
The global normative work in essential medicines carried out by WHO is growing in importance as more and more global players are relying on it for their work. United Nations agencies, Member States, industry and large donors depend heavily on it to ensure the quality, safety and efficacy of their medicines. The strategy highlights how this normative foundation work will continue to be carried out by WHO.
In addition, the strategy outlines priority areas where more support is needed, such as medicines supply, rational use, and country-level interventions. Even after more than 30 years of the essential medicines concept, there are still several places where access to essential medicines is poor. For example, there is growing awareness of the challenges in accessing children's medicines and medicines to treat chronic diseases and we are working on that. However, there are other medicines including controlled medicines for pain and drug abuse, and therapeutic sera for rabies and snake bites, where a serious lack of access is causing much needless suffering every day. This problem is largely unnoticed but in recent times has a serious human rights aspect. Over 90% of patients in Africa, when dying from HIV/AIDS, die in pain without palliative pain treatment. Most of the disability and death caused by untreated dog or snake bites is suffered by the rural poor and the women and children tilling the land - exactly those whose voices are rarely heard by the politicians. Urgent international action is needed to halt this trend. Other emerging areas of work include good governance for medicines and combating counterfeit medicines. These are all issues that WHO has been advancing and which require additional support to bring about sustainable change.
http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/medstrategy08_13/en/index.html
The global normative work in essential medicines carried out by WHO is growing in importance as more and more global players are relying on it for their work. United Nations agencies, Member States, industry and large donors depend heavily on it to ensure the quality, safety and efficacy of their medicines. The strategy highlights how this normative foundation work will continue to be carried out by WHO.
In addition, the strategy outlines priority areas where more support is needed, such as medicines supply, rational use, and country-level interventions. Even after more than 30 years of the essential medicines concept, there are still several places where access to essential medicines is poor. For example, there is growing awareness of the challenges in accessing children's medicines and medicines to treat chronic diseases and we are working on that. However, there are other medicines including controlled medicines for pain and drug abuse, and therapeutic sera for rabies and snake bites, where a serious lack of access is causing much needless suffering every day. This problem is largely unnoticed but in recent times has a serious human rights aspect. Over 90% of patients in Africa, when dying from HIV/AIDS, die in pain without palliative pain treatment. Most of the disability and death caused by untreated dog or snake bites is suffered by the rural poor and the women and children tilling the land - exactly those whose voices are rarely heard by the politicians. Urgent international action is needed to halt this trend. Other emerging areas of work include good governance for medicines and combating counterfeit medicines. These are all issues that WHO has been advancing and which require additional support to bring about sustainable change.
http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/medstrategy08_13/en/index.html
Kemal Hussein
Senior Consultant, ARV Access for Africa
