Published 12 January 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b96
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b96

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Less than half of essential drugs for children are available in most central African countries

Roger Dobson

1 Abergavenny

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The availability of essential drugs for children in central Africa is poor, a new study shows. In only three of 14 countries surveyed were more than 50% of the drugs that are considered essential—as indicated by national lists and standard treatment guidelines—available from central medical stores.

"If the availability of these essential medicines for children is as poor as is suggested by the results of this study, we have a lot to do to understand what is happening in the supply systems for medicines in these countries before we can improve them," say the authors, from the World Health Organization and the University of Newcastle, Australia (Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/87/08-053645.pdf).

The authors looked at the availability and cost of the drugs in Cameroon, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania, . . . [Full text of this article]


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