Project ERDU: Reviving Educators for Rational Drug Use

HAIAP brought together dedicated educators towards rational drug use by convening two successful regional seminars. These provided a platform in order to promote the concept of RUM to undergraduate medical and pharmacy students.

An informal network of regional educators for rational drug use has now been established, with the HAIAP Secretariat acting as the clearing house. The online network for this purpose was set up at the 2009 Regional Consultation on ‘Setting Up an Informal Network Educators for Rational Drug Use’, held in Negombo, Sri Lanka.

Project Banned Drugs

There has been alarming concern recently about the quality of a large number of medicines flooding the market. The question arises of the safety and efficacy of these medicines when safer, cheaper and equally effective alternatives exist. It is very important to not just warn but to ensure that medicines that are potentially hazardous are removed from the market. Especially if safer, effective and affordable alternatives exist.

HAIAP has recently completed a region-wide extensive survey on Banned Drugs. The result of which has seen countries like Nepal and Thailand in the process of urging their governments to remove danger drugs from the market for good.
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Project IFDCs

The availability, marketing, prescribing, dispensing, usage and development of fixed-dose combinations (FDCs) are becoming increasingly important from a public health perspective. Many of these FDCs are harmful and a vast majority of them are irrational. It is only a few selected FDCs which are widely used in the management of HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, that are considered to be the foremost threats today.

The 15th edition of WHO Model List of Essential Drugs contains 25 FDCs out of 352 medicines in total (Appendix 3). Six of these are for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and five of them are for TB.

The National Essential Drug list of India (1996) contains 11 FDCs; the National Drug List of Nepal (Third revision:2002) contains 14 and the Sri Lankan List of Essential Drugs (Third revision:2006) has 16 FDCs out of 340 medicines. Although only a handful of essential FDCs have been recognized by WHO and the national essential drug lists of Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, a wider variety of FDCs are still available in the market today.

The HAIAP advocacy campaign to remove irrational fixed-dose combinations (IFDCs) is based on the 39th Report (2005) compiled by the WHO expert committee on specifications for pharmaceutical preparations (WHO technical report series 929).

PRESS SCAN: Khaleej Times refers to HAI Medicines Prices Survey

by Asma Ali Zain

"A snap-shot price comparison has found that patients in the UAE pay at least four times more for a branded drug than its generic version available in retail pharmacies.

The one-day survey was conducted by Health Action International (HAI) — an independent global network working to increase access to medicines — across 93 countries on November 30 last year.

The Dutch Non-Government Organisation with over 200 members from 70 countries surveyed the ‘one-day price’ of a common antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, off patent for more than five years now and available in several generic versions worldwide.

On the day of the survey, a seven-day course of the originator drug was available in the UAE for $48.59 (Dh178), while the lowest priced generic version was available for only $12.77 (Dh46.90)."
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ANNOUNCEMENT: Global Pill Price Snapshot - Ciprofloxacin: Price Variations in South-East Asia

Not everyone has access to medicines and not all medicines are available in the public sector. Medical reimbursement schemes are too expensive for most patients. What are the consequences? Pay for medicines at their full price in the private sector, purchase just a fraction of the treatment course, or worse, be untreated. Sickness should never result in making such choices. For the millions of people living in the impoverished regions of the world, medicines cost the sky. To illustrate the issue of high prices, Health Action International (HAI) undertook a one day global ‘snapshot’ of the price of ciprofloxacin, a commonly-used off-patent antibiotic. The ‘snapshots’ indicate the full retail price a patient pays at a pharmacy on that day.
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NEWS: HAIAP Website Analytics

The website is one of HAIAP's strongest and most effective advocacy and network tools. With the assistance of Google's clever analytic tools, we are now pleased to disclose the length, breadth and depth of HAIAP's worldwide outreach. To access full reports of the website's visitor statistics,
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PUBLICATION: HAI News #150

This issue of HAI News begins with a strong statement by HAI to EU Member States on respecting the principles of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS for the peaceful transit of legitimate generic medicines across Europe. The leader for the newsletter is a case study of HAI-Asia Pacific and its contribution towards a healthy and democratic society in the region, further confirmed by the report of HAIAP's latest venture - a network of educators for rational drug use (ERDU). The effort is an echo of the WHO/HAI new educational tool for medical and pharmaceutical students, featured on page 12, in order that they understand pharmaceutical promotion better. And timely so, since the latest round of EU-CAN FTA negotiations favour drug companies, as disclosed by HAI's Latin American network.
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