Independent drug information in Burkina Faso is key to improving public health

Abstract

It is a quiet morning at the Centre for Doc ument ation and Information on Medicines (CEDIM) in Burkina Faso. Someone knocks on the door: a drug industry representative barges in complaining. She has visited several hospitals and to her dismay, physicians are challenging use of her company’s drug. They continue to prescribe the reference treatment with a favourable benefi t–risk balance, as recommended in the latest issue of the local drug bulletin La Lettre du CEDIM. Such visits occur often. CEDIM was established 25 years ago with the support of WHO. CEDIM provides local doctors and community health workers with tailored and evidence-based information about medicines and health strategies and publishes La Lettre du CEDIM—a quarterly 16-page drug bulletin. La Lettre du CEDIM is part of the International Society of Drug Bulletins, a worldwide network of publications on drugs and therapeutics founded in 1986. Despite CEDIM’s impressive track record and international recognition, the only independent drug bulletin in francophone sub-Saharan Africa is now threatened. After recent reorganisations at the Ministry of Health, CEDIM’s autonomy in the use of its €30 000 annual budget covering, among other items, publication costs, is jeopardised—putting CEDIM’s independence and sustainability at risk. In a resource-constrained setting, where reliable information is scarce, internet access is diffi cult, and libraries are few and ill-equipped, CEDIM’s role is even more remarkable. Independent high-quality drug information is key to improvements in public health, particularly when health workers will otherwise rely on advertising materials the medical community as a whole. They threaten both the trust placed in health-care professionals and their efforts to achieve universal health coverage. Finally, public attention and advocacy should rightly be invested in campaigning against legislation changes in countries; however, equal attention is needed in settings in which they are already in law. The ambitious goals to tackle HIV by 2015 as outlined by UNAIDS, particularly to halve the number of countries with “punitive laws and practices around HIV transmission, sex work, drug use or homosexuality that block effective responses” cannot be achieved if we are going backwards and not forwards. If homosexual communities are further marginalised or isolated by national policies, the prospect of undoing progress in HIV/AIDS care is real. The international health community, together with those in law, human rights, and equality, can ill-aff ord to not make this case heard.