African civil society calls on governments to eliminate medicines stock-outs
June 3, 2009 by StopStockouts
On 4-6 May 2009, Oxfam and Health Action International (HAI) Africa convened 30 civil society organizations (CSOs) and policy-makers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to examine strategies for reducing stock-outs of medicines in public health facilities, and improving access to essential medicines in Africa.
The workshop was held prior to the Fourth Conference of African Ministers of Health Meeting (CAMH4) held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 4-8 May 2009. The theme of CAMH4 was “Universal Access to Essential Health Services: Improving Maternal and Child Rights.
The workshop followed the launch of the Africa-wide campaign, Stop the Stock-outs: Access to Essential Medicines for All, in February 2009. Oxfam and HAI Africa, together with other regional and national partners from Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, launched the campaign to highlight the public health impact of stock-outs of essential medicines in health facilities across the continent. The campaign stresses the imperative for African governments to fulfil their commitments to ensuring access to medicines for all their people.
The aim of the workshop was to develop a coordinated national, regional and continental advocacy action plan focused on improving access to medicines across the continent. The meeting had discussions with key continental and sub-regional policy makers relevant to ensuring access to medicines.
The meeting participants were drawn from the African Union, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Oxfam, Mission for Essential Drug Supplies (MEDS), East African Community (EAC), Ministries of health in Kenya and Ethiopia, HAI Africa and partners from the five African countries involved in the stock-outs campaign Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe,.
Calls to governments in Africa
The civil society organisations present at the meeting under the umbrella of “stop stock outs” campaign partners urged governments to eliminate stock outs from all public and mission health institutions.
The group asked governments in Africa to provide a dedicated national budget line for essential medicines. They want governments to allow for complete autonomy of central medical stores and provide effective representation of civil society on the boards of national and regional procurement agencies.
They further urged governments to express their commitment to the integration of all Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreements (TRIPS) flexibilities relevant to maternal and child health into their national legislation. This, they say, should include parallel importation; broader grounds for compulsory licensing such as to prevent anti-competitive practices; implementing the Least Developed Countries transition period of excluding pharmaceutical patents from patentability until 2016; and the exclusion of new use / second use patents.
The campaign partners also called for particular action on the integration into law of those TRIPS flexibilities that support the local production of pharmaceuticals. They further urged governments to agree to look into increasing information on patent status of essential medicines to facilitate local manufacture of non-patented medicines which are more affordable.
They strongly urged governments to consider national and sub-regional pooled procurement of essential medicines and medical supplies for improved public health delivery. Pooled procurement allows for member states from regional economic communities such as EAC and SADC to come together to combine resources and procure from selected sources of medicines to take advantages of economies of scale.
They were also deeply concerned with the emergence of anti-counterfeit legislations in Africa, which tend to confuse and label generic medicines as counterfeits. African governments were urged to enact legislations that differentiate generic medicines from counterfeits in their national legislation so as to protect local production, importation and use.
Finally, the campaign partners urged governments to honour the Abuja commitments where they pledged to allocate 15 percent of their national budgets to health, and to implement innovative public health financing mechanisms including national health insurance schemes to enhance access to health services for all and in particular for women and children.
Civil society organisations participants at the workshop
