Essential medicines
Essential medicines (WHO designation Essential Medicines, German also essential medicines, essential medicines) are as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO ) those drugs that are needed to satisfy the most urgent needs of the population to medical care. They should be available in a health system in an adequate amount, the correct dosage form, good quality and at an affordable price for the patient.
The World Health Organization summarizes the essential medicines together in the model list of essential medicines that are meant as a recommendation for governments of individual states to develop their own standards of care. By the end of 2003 156 countries had defined the official lists of essential drugs. Nevertheless, a considerable part of the world's population has no access to these drugs.
Ensure access for all people to essential medicines is a declared goal of the Millennium Summit.
List of Essential Medicines
A sample list of essential drugs is compiled by an expert committee of the WHO ( Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines ) according to the criteria of the disease frequency, effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness. The list is intended primarily for national governments; this should create your own lists for their regional needs based on the WHO list. The first time, in 1977, published by the WHO statement shall be revised every two years. Currently, drugs are with about 300 different drugs, including many vaccines listed.
Access to essential medicines
According to a publication of the World Bank, one third of the world population does not have effective access to essential medicines. Approximately 65 per cent of Indians and 47 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa can not get essential medicines when they need it. The reasons for this are complex: lack of financial resources, poor infrastructure and logistics, a generally poorly developed health care system, partly through patent protection to high drug prices ( see below).
In developing and emerging drug costs make up a significant portion of health care expenditures. Expenditures case of serious illnesses are a major cause of the impoverishment of households in these countries.
Essential medicines and patents
Approximately 95 percent of the drugs on the current WHO list are not protected by patents. These drugs can therefore be produced at low cost and traded globally as generics. Problematic because patent protected, but are listed by the WHO antivirals for the treatment of AIDS. These are patented in general, not only in the developed countries; by the Agreement on Trade -Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), this protection has been extended in recent years to include emerging and developing countries, which has further complicated the access to these resources in such countries. The organization Doctors Without Borders calls, therefore, to modify the TRIPS agreement so that all essential medicines are excluded from patent protection in these countries.
Such demands come from side of universities. 2001, the Association of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines was founded at Yale University, advocating that the university research also neglected diseases (see below) to give greater consideration and can also benefit poor countries of research results.
Neglected diseases
Another problem related to essential drugs are the so-called neglected diseases. Among them, the World Health Organization understood diseases that occur predominantly or exclusively in developing countries, such as tropical diseases such as malaria and African trypanosomiasis. For many of these diseases sometimes for decades no new products were developed, because the pharmaceutical research is not to pursue cost recovery for the pharmaceutical companies in this area. Recently, however, some recent developments have been started in the form of a public-private partnership and even brought in part to the success, for example, a new, non- patented artesunate amodiaquine combination preparation ( ASAQ ) for malaria treatment.