22/3/2011 - The World Health Organisation has released a list of essential medicines for sick women and children. The list will help countries meet health-related Millennium Development Goals.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released a list of priority medicines for common and serious illnesses that affect women and children. The list includes 30 essential medicines that will help developing countries to meet internationally-agreed upon targets for maternal and child health.
Every year, 1,000 women and 8.1 million children, mostly in developing countries, lose their lives. Many of these deaths could be prevented by providing sick people with the right medicines, in the right combinations and in the rights doses.
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (Studies in Development Economics and Policy)
The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010
Representatives of the specialized United Nations agency gathered in Accra, Ghana yesterday for the 18th WHO Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines.
The Committee's purpose in publishing the list of essential medicines was to expedite progress toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – Goal 4 of which calls for a two-thirds reduction in child mortality rates and Goal 5 of which calls for a three-quarters reduction of maternal mortality rates across developing countries.
The MDGs are a set of eight benchmarks for international development. They aim to comprehensively reverse some of the foremost causes of the poverty cycle, including income poverty, low access to primary education, gender inequality, HIV/AIDS, environmental factors and a need for more development funding.
Dr. Suzanne Hill, clinical pharmacologist at the WHO, spoke at a press briefing for the Committee. According to Dr. Hill, the list was developed in cooperation with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in order to pinpoint and improve the availability of the medicines that would make the biggest impact on reducing maternal, newborn and child mortality rates. Dr. Hill is in charge of Medicines Access and Rational Use at the WHO.
All the drugs on the priority list for women and children were also on the Model List for Essential Medicines. The Committee was also charged with developing strategies for improving the use of essential medicines and providing policy advice on a number of health issues.
Severe bleeding (haemorrhage) is the leading cause of maternal deaths. Haemorrhage can lead to death in only a couple of hours. The WHO has therefore recommended that new mothers receive an injection of oxytocin immediately following delivery to effectively curb the bleeding and save the mother's life.
Pneumonia remains a major killer of children worldwide. Despite that fact that a simple course of antibiotic treatment could prevent up to 600,000 lives, the disease continues to claim the lives of 1.6 million children every year.
Further interventions recommended for children include treatment for diarrhoea, malaria and HIV/AIDS. Expanding access to oral rehydration salts and zinc supplements could save the lives of the 1.3 million children who die of diarrhoea every year. Meanwhile, providing children with the most beneficial combination of anti-malarial drugs and anti-retroviral medication could greatly reduce the number of child deaths from malaria and opportunistic infections related to HIV/AIDS.
Survey-based research in 14 African countries showed that children's medicines are only available in 35% to 50% of both private and public pharmacies. While zinc is often not available at all, oral rehydration salts are available in only half of African pharmacies.
Improving the supply, distribution and cost barriers to women and children's access to essential medicines will prove indispensable to meeting Goals 4 and 5 of the MDG agenda.
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