Access to Essential Medicines for Diabetes Care: Availability, Price, and Affordability in Central Ethiopia
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Diabetes is a major global public health burden. Effective diabetes management is highly dependent on the availability of affordable and quality-assured essential medicines (EMs) which is a challenge especially in low-and-middle-income countries such as Ethiopia.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 60 selected public and private medicine outlets in central Ethiopia from January to February 2022 using the World Health Organization/Health Action International (WHO/HAI) standard tool to assess access to EMs. We included EMs that lower glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol as these are all critical for diabetes care. Availability was determined as the percentage of surveyed outlets per sector in which the selected lowest-priced generic (LPG) and originator brand (OB) products were found. The number of days' wages required by the lowest paid government worker (LPGW) to purchase a one month's supply of medicines was used to measure affordability while median price was determined to assess patient price and price markup difference between public procurement and retail prices.
RESULTS: Across all facilities, availability of LPG and OB medicines were 34.6% and 2.5% respectively. Only two glucose-lowering (glibenclamide 5mg, metformin 500mg) and two blood pressure-lowering medications (nifedipine 20mg and hydrochlorothiazide 25mg) surpassed the WHO's target of 80% availability. The median price based on the least measurable unit of LPG diabetes EMs was 1.6…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a cross-sectional. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Metformin as an adjuvant in breast cancer treatment
- Metformin Lysosomal Targeting: A Novel Aspect to Be Investigated for Metformin Repurposing in Neurodegenerative Diseases?
- Aberrant HSF1 signaling activation underlies metformin amelioration of myocardial infarction in mice
- Metformin induces ZFP36 by mTORC1 inhibition in cervical cancer-derived cell lines
- Protein Interaction Network for Identifying Vascular Response of Metformin (Oral Antidiabetic)
- Preventing Long COVID With Metformin
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.