Information about medicines: where to start?

Posted on 10 March 2009

In most countries participating in MeTA, a multi-stakeholder forum is in place. Representatives from government, pharmaceutical industries, business and civil society organisations are meeting regularly to find ways to make medicines more accessible to poor people. But where do they start? The aim is to make information about medicines more available and transparent so that any inefficiencies in the system can be exposed and put right. The medicines supply chain is renowned for being extremely complex. So what information does the forum start making available and how?

In six of the seven countries participating in MeTA – Ghana, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, the Philippines and Uganda - critical information is newly available. The World Health Organization and Health Action International (HAI) developed a standardised method for surveying medicine prices, availability, affordability, and price components in low-income and middle-income countries. In May 2008 they published the 2nd edition of a manual to collect and analyse medicine prices across sectors and regions in a country, as well as medicine availability, treatment affordability and all price components in the supply chain from manufacturer to patient (taxes, mark-ups etc.)

This is a key starting point for MeTA countries as they can use this information, make it easily available for anyone to access in the country and start to generate accountability about the state of the medicines sector. An article about the Medicines Pricing Survey was published in Dec 08 in the Lancet.