Availability, prices and affordability of essential medicines: A cross-sectional survey in Hanam province, Vietnam.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To measure medicines' prices, availability, and affordability in Hanam, Vietnam.

Methods

The standardized methodology developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Health Action International was used to survey 30 essential medicines (EMs) in 30 public health facilities and 35 private medicine outlets in 2020. The availability of medicine was computed as the percentage of health facilities in which this medicine was found on the data-collection day. International reference prices (IRPs) from Management Sciences for Health (2015) were used to compute Median Price Ratio (MPR). The affordability of treatments for common diseases was computed as the number of days' wages of the lowest-paid unskilled government worker needed to purchase medicines prescribed at a

SUBMITTER: Nguyen HTT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8601520 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature