By CARLOS LOPES
Ever since the high tech generic drug production
facility, Cinpharm-Cameroon, was set up, it is relatively easier for
Cameroonians to have access to medicines.
Now a low wage earner can access a course of antibiotics at a lower price than a Kenyan counterpart.
According to the World Health Organisation, a
seven-day course of treatment with ciprofloxacin could cost in Kenya
close to a month’s wages.
Unfortunately, this scenario is not uncommon across
Africa. In Uganda, it could cost about 11 days of a household income
to purchase a single course of artemisinin-combination therapy used to
treat malaria for an under five-year-old child.
Africa carries 25 per cent of the world’s disease burden but consumes less than one per cent of global health expenditure.
It manufactures less than two per cent of the
medicines it consumes. Over 70 per cent of the world’s HIV/AIDS cases
and 90 per cent of the deaths due to malaria currently occur in Africa.
In addition, the continent bears 50 per cent of the
global deaths of under five children mainly due to neonatal causes as
well as pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
The tragedy is that these diseases are treatable:
most related deaths could be prevented with timely access to appropriate
and affordable medicines.
Africa’s capacity for pharmaceutical research and
design (R&D) and local drug production is amongst the lowest in the
world. The problem of inadequate investments in this area,
unfortunately, continues. Overall, 37 African countries have some
pharmaceutical production, although only South Africa produces some
active pharmaceutical ingredients.
Where there is local production in Africa, normally
there is a reliance on imported active ingredients. As a result, the
supply of African pharmaceuticals remains highly dependent on foreign
funding and imports.
The pharmaceutical market in Africa is now 70 per
cent imported. According to trade data, India alone accounted for 17.7
per cent of African pharmaceutical imports in 2011. Estimates further
suggest that more than 80 per cent of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) across
the continent are imported.
The poor access and affordability of medicines is
compounded by factors that include long lead times for international
orders; infrastructure gaps such as poor logistics and storage capacity,
as well as high transport and distribution costs.
In addition, there have been scarce public finances
and deficient public health procurement systems. It is estimated that
there is scarcity of essential medicines both in the public and private
sector. People are also often being forced to buy medicines that may not
be certified.
Many African governments spend a disproportionate
amount of their scarce resources on procuring medicines. For instance,
in 2006, Mali and Burundi, spent 2.3 per cent and 2.9 per cent of their
GDP on such imports.
Trends now indicate that new health challenges
facing the continent will generate for their demands. Non-communicable
diseases, like heart disease, lung disorders, diabetes and cancer, are
rising due to demographic and lifestyle changes. These conditions will
account for half the deaths in Africa, surpassing those provoked by
infectious disease
No comments:
Post a Comment