Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy: Extending the Evidence Base

Defining the Benefit Package of Thailand Universal Coverage Scheme: From Pragmatism to Sophistication

Benefit package is crucial for implementing universal health coverage (UHC). This editorial analyses how the benefit package of the Thai Universal Coverage Scheme (UC Scheme) evolved from an implicit comprehensive package which covered all conditions and interventions (with a few exceptions), to additional explicit positive lists. In 2002 when the Thai UC Scheme was lau...

Essential Medicines for Children: An Endocrine Perspective

Submission from : Section 2: Contribution

Much of the current debate on health care goals, medical innovation and trade rules focuses on the misalignment between the need to provide incentives to innovation – mainly through a tight intellectual property (IPR) regime – and the resulting negative consequences in terms of access to medicines. While this clash is certainly crucial, this contribution focuses on a different aspect of the mis...

Three Years Evaluation of Drug Shortages from Educational Pharmacies in Tehran

     The effectiveness of any drug supply systems in providing a trustworthy supply of essential drugs is a critical issue. To evaluate this effectiveness, it is necessary to watch over the status of the essential medicines in any country impartially and continuously. Some countries and also the World Health Organization (WHO) have codified a list of minimum medicines needed for a basic health ...

The concept of essential medicines: lessons for rich countries.

Industrialised countries, faced with increasing demands for quality health care by ageing populations and ever increasing costs of medicines, can learn from low income countries how to respond to pharmaceutical policy issues in a comprehensive way. Since the 1970s many developing countries have started national programmes for essential drugs to promote the availability, accessibility, affordabi...