Availability of Essential Medicines in Sudan?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Although availability of essential medicines is one of the most important objectives of national medicines' policies; the unavailability of essential medicines remains a major problem for poor countries. Objective: The study was carried out to measure availability and duration of out of stock of essential medicines in Sudan. Method: The study was carried out using the World Health Organization (WHO) Operational Package for Assessing and Monitoring Pharmaceutical Situation in Countries format for data collection. Results: On the average; availability of selected essential medicines at the public pharmacy; medicine stores and the private pharmacies was found to be 80.6; 90.0and 93.0; respectively. The survey found the mean duration of stock out at medicines store was 26.5 days and no records available about inventory control at the pharmacy level. Among the states; the study found low availability of medicines at North Kordufan public pharmacies. The study found no statistical significant difference as far as a Developing country concerning availability of medicines at rural or urban areas (p 0.05). Conclusion: Generally availability and stock out duration of essential medicines in the Sudan were acceptable