Health
Everyone wants to live a long and healthy life.
But if you live in a poor country your chances of living a full span are vastly lower than in the West.
Access to medicines
One of the key building blocks of a well-functioning health system is ensuring equitable access to essential medical products, vaccines and technologies of assured quality and cost-effectiveness. But this is far from being achieved in developing countries. For large sections of the global population essential medicines, even if available, are unaffordable.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), up to 90% of the population in developing countries purchase medicines through out-of-pocket payments, making medicines the largest family expenditure item after food. In Uganda, a recent survey estimated that the annual cost of purchasing effective medicines to treat just malaria was equivalent to 62 days of household basic food costs.
Studies have also shown that availability of essential medicines is often poor in the public sector where prices are usually cheaper, forcing patients to resort to the more expensive private sector.
We work across a wide range of areas to improve access to medicines as part of health systems.
Global action on access to medicines was catalysed at the beginning of the century by the challenge of making then very expensive antiretrovirals (ARVs) available to millions of HIV/AIDS sufferers in developing countries. Since then there have been significant improvements, including more than 3 million people in developing countries on ARV treatment in 2008 at a cost per head as much as 99% lower than in 2000.
But much more remains to be done in respect of HIV/AIDS, and in making accessible the full range of products needed to prevent and treat conditions that affect developing countries, including both infectious and non-communicable diseases and maternal and child mortality. Where products do not exist for particular conditions, investment in the development of new products is essential.
Read more about what DFID is doing on improving access to medicines
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Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA)
A woman with iron pills, administered during pregnancy for women suffering from iron-deficiency anaemia.
Medicines are too often too expensive to be bought by the people who need them most.
Douglas Alexander Secretary of State
