Drug management

The availability of medicines is vital to improve access to care for people living in transition or developing countries. Much has already been accomplished in this field, but still more remains to be done: for example, less than 20% of African populations have access to malaria vaccines, whose quality is often inferior to those sold in developed countries, when they are not counterfeits.

The strengthening of national bodies for the distribution and control of medicines must therefore accompany actions undertaken to reduce their cost.

In this context, Conseil Santé's assignments focus on the following main areas:

• Adaptation of pharmaceutical legislation and regulations, as well as of medicine approval and importation procedures.
• Support for the definition and implementation of national policy on key medicines.
• Support for the creation of national medicines agencies, medicine quality control laboratories and pharmaceutical inspectorates.
• Development of procedures and tools for the importation, supply and distribution of medicines.
• Organisation of the quality control of medicines and of pharmacovigilance systems.
• Creation, setting up and management support for central purchase offices of pharmaceutical products and storage warehouses.
• Functional, organisational and financial audit of public health pharmacies.
• Design, creation and start-up of management systems for the stocking and supply of medicine central purchase offices.
• Support for the procurement (launching and examination of international calls for tender) of medicine supply. Development of procurement manuals.
• Organisation of hospital pharmacies and laboratories.
• Technical assistance to implement financing systems for the provision of basic public health training on key medicines.
• Setting up of mechanisms to fix medicine sale prices.
• Assistance for the modification of medicine pricing and reimbursement systems.
• Harmonisation of pharmaceutical legislation.
• Fighting underground markets and counterfeiting.