National Drug Policy Advocacy Project: India

A national workshop titled "Towards a Pharmaceutical Policy in India" was held 19th-20th February 2010. The workshop focused on discussing multiple chapters related to policy and developing recommendations toward the formulation of a comprehensive pharmaceutical policy. The recommendations will be used as campaign tools for networking organisations and they will be pursued with the Ministries concerned. There were a total of 108 participants representing several states in India.

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.
Read more

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).

ANNOUNCEMENT: Deadline Approaching for IPHU Course in Sri Lanka

The International People's Health University (IPHU) of the People's Health Movement (PHM), in collaboration with Sarvodaya (on behalf of PHM-Sri Lanka) and Health Action International Asia-Pacific are pleased to announce 'The Struggle for Health' short course for health activists scheduled to be held in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka on 8th-16th August, 2010. Applications are invited from young health activists worldwide by 5th August 2010. A limited number of scholarships for travel and/or accommodation will be available for qualified applicants applicants from Sri Lanka (outside of Moratuwa) and neighbouring countries. The course will be conducted in Sinhala, Tamil and English. For further details and to apply, visit www.iphu.org/en/moratuwa/announce .

BOOK RELEASE: 'Where There Are No Pharmacists'

'Where There Are No Pharmacists' (ISBN: 978-967-5412-17-2) was launched on April 30, 2010 at the Health Action International Asia-Pacific (HAIAP) Review & Planning meeting in Sri Lanka. It is published by HAIAP and Third World Network (TWN) and is available from TWN at US$10 for developing countries and US$15 for industrialised countries.

'Where There Are No Pharmacists' is about managing medicines. It explains in easy English how to order medicines, store them, prepare them, dispense them and use them safely and effectively for people working with medicines as well as information to help communities benefit from the use of medicines. It provides guidance for anyone who is doing the work of a pharmacist; anyone who sells, dispenses, prepares, manages, or explains to others how to use medicines. It does not provide clinical advice but emphasises the need to adhere to national standard treatment guidelines or in their absence, to appropriate texts and guidelines.

For more information on the book and how to purchase it, contact HAIAP: hai@haiap.org .

PRESS RELEASE: 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.
Read Press Release