Govt, Stakeholders discuss access to medicines
The preliminary findings on access to medicines in Malawi has been described as an eye-opener especially for the sectors of HIV, TB, STI and the aggressive medicines.
Reacting to the findings, Ministry of Health Chief Medical Officer for HIV, STIs and Viral Hepatitis, Dr. Rabson Kachala said the ministry has taken note of the preliminary results but will wait for the full report to inform further action.
“Looking at the preliminary findings, a number of issues have also been highlighted, including the issue of record-keeping, which we expect to improve” added Dr. Kachala during National Advocacy on Access to Medicines Meeting held yesterday in Lilongwe.
Presenting on the preliminary findings on access to medicines, an independent consultant Dr. Benjamin Mosiwa shared that there are some commonly used TB drugs which consume more resources and further disclosed that the public does not have data for top 10 medicines commonly used by more people in the Country.
During the meeting some stakeholders also challenged the intellectual property barriers that prevent people from accessing various medicines in the country.
Community Health Rights and Advocacy (CHERA) Executive Director Aniz Mitha said they organized the meeting with an aim of making medicines available and make known of the solidarity project, which is being implemented in four countries, Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda and Malawi.
National Civil Society Advocacy Chairperson Gift Trapence noted the problem of unsafe keeping of medical data as one of the crucial challenges the country face and need to better.
“I think the consultant had challenges in accessing the data, which also goes to our systems in terms of how we manage data, because if we cannot keep data then maybe we are also getting or we are targeting our people wrongly.” Explained Trapence while expressing the need to keep the data and make every citizen know exact needs in terms of access to the medicines.
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