PHA-Exch> Meeting Report available: pan-African meeting on Access and Rational Use of Medicines in Sub-Saharan Africa

[Claudio Schuftan]

----From: Stella Etemesi info at haiafrica.org

Medicine experts and stakeholders from s converged in Nairobi to discuss
issues surrounding access to and rational use of medicines at a pan-African
meeting hosted by HAI Africa in collaboration with the Ecumenical
Pharmaceutical Network (EPN) on 14-15 November 2007. Participants came from
15 sub-Saharan countries including: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana,
Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia and South
Africa.  They included representatives from African civil society
organizations (CSOs) and faith-based organizations (FBOs), government
officials from the Kenya, Uganda and Ghana Ministries of health as well as
other stakeholders in the African pharmaceutical sector.

Held on the heels of the 30 year anniversary since the launch of the first
Essential Medicines List (EML), the theme of the meeting - "Saving lives and
saving money: Making access to and rational use of medicines a priority" -
was reflective of the principles of the essential medicines concept that
drove the development of the EML.

A major outcome of the essential medicines concept is that it has helped
focus global and national attention on access to and appropriate use of
essential medicines. Picking up on these two areas of "accessibility" and
"rational use" various experts at the meeting spoke on the gains made in the
30 years of EML concept as well as on how barriers that hinder universal
access to and appropriate use of essential medicines, especially in
sub-Sahara Africa could be addressed.

A full report of the meeting is available at
http://www.haiafrica.org/downloads/pan_africa_meeting.pdf on the HAI Africa
website. There is also a limited number of CD-ROMs containing presentations
made at the meeting,  available upon request from info at haiafrica.org or from
info at epnetwork.org.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20080314/51f34a11/attachment-0001.html>