Journal of Pharmacovigilance

Abstract

Evaluation of Drug Affordability in Khartoum State, Sudan

Salah Mohamed Elhassan, Gamal Osman Elhassan, Abubakr A Alfadl, Sara Anas Sirelkhatim and Khalid Omer Alfarouk

Introduction: Medicine prices are often high and unaffordable not only for the majority of people in low- and middleincome countries, but also for significant number of the population without social protection or insurance in high income countries. As a result, the lack of access to essential medicines due to unaffordability in developing countries is one of the most pressing global health problems.

Objective: To provide comparable, evidence-based information for policy makers. Method: A cross sectional descriptive survey study was applied.

Results and discussion: It seems that despite of the affordability was shown for many studied conditions, but still affordability of medicines remains a major problem for Sudan.

Conclusion: It could be concluded that absence of standard treatment guidelines that are of sound scientific bases and cost-effectiveness resulting in low quality prescribing and dispensing practices which had led to wide variations in the prescribing patterns for the assessed acute and chronic conditions.