Access to medicines still difficult

Obtaining universal acceptance of adequate access to medicines as a human right remains a challenge, requiring strong leadership nationally and internationally, says Bernard Pecoul, Director of the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines.

[The campaign is run by Medecins Sans Frontiers - MSF.]

Pecoul, who was speaking on Monday at the 25th Aniversary of the WHO Essential Medicines List, said access to medical care and drugs could be a question of life or death for an individual. It featured among the highest priorities of people living in the developed world, he noted, but in developing countries, governments lack the means and/or interest to bring about real improvements in the living conditions of their people.

Lack of access has often hampered the fight against some illnesses. In 1990, for example, a new sleeping sickness drug came onto the market that was so effective it was dubbed 'the resurrection drug', Pecoul explained. "We were suddenly full of hope for our patients. But our hope was short-lived: the medicine was far too expensive. And five years later, the drug companies had stopped production, because the drug was not profitable enough."

"Some of us were upset by this situation, both within MSF and elsewhere. We were upset by other things too: the extortionate prices of new antibiotics and antiretrovirals, for which there were no alternatives because of patents; and the fact that almost no new research was being conducted into medicines for tropical diseases."

"Lining up all these elements, we saw that this was no longer simply about medicine, but about the fundamental inequity in the way the world is organised," he said.

The basic problem, and the one that remains the most important to combat, is poverty. The solutions lie in the long term, Pécoul said.

One of the most telling examples is antiretrovirals, to which 95 percent of all people with HIV/AIDS do not have access, he said.

Over the last 25 years, the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines has been one of the most important public health tools to increase access to medicines and promote their rational selection and use, Pécoul noted.

Recent revisions to the way the Essential Medicines List is composed have sought to make it a fairer and more effective tool. Some drugs were previously not included because they were too expensive. According to the new definition, price is not a reason for exclusion.

For more information visit
http://www.accessmed-msf.org/index.asp
http://www.who.int/en/
http://www.who.int/medicines/organization/par/edl/eml.shtml