The World Health Organization (WHO) defines its vision for essential medicines as “… that people everywhere have access to the essential medicines they need; that the medicines are safe, effective, and of good quality; and prescribed and used rationally.” (http://www.who.int/medicines/en/) The USAID | DELIVER PROJECT supports this vision and works to improve the availability of essential medicines in developing countries.
WHO reports that over half the world does not have access to essential medicines. (http://www.who.int/topics/essential_medicines/en/) To improve the availability of these medicines across the developing world, USAID programs work at the global, regional, and country level to improve availability of and access to quality medicines.
Essential medicines are needed to treat priority health conditions (conditions that have public health relevance). The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines includes, among other classes of medicines, antibacterial medicines, anti-tuberculosis medicines, antiretrovirals (to treat HIV and AIDS), antimalarials, oral rehydration salts (to treat diarrhea), vaccines, and contraceptives. Effective prevention and treatment requires that these essential medicines be maintained in full supply at all times.
Many countries develop a National Essential Medicines List (NEML) that identifies the medicines most relevant to their priority conditions. After the country formulates the NEML, procurement and supply management mechanisms should be established to ensure that high-quality and affordable essential medicines can be purchased and supplied at appropriate health facilities.
The USAID | DELIVER PROJECT assists the development of essential medicine supply chains in a number of ways. We use our 20 years experience designing and strengthening supply chain systems for contraceptives to design and strengthen logistics systems for a broad array of integrated essential medicines. Leading from family planning, we have applied lessons learned in contraceptive commodity management, information systems, distribution, and storage. In an integrated logistics system, several different health commodities can be stored, delivered, and ordered together, thus boosting program efficiency and lowering costs.
