Measuring Availability and Prices of Locally Produced and Imported Medicines in Sudan

Abstract

Introduction The objective of this study was to compare the availability and prices of locally produced and imported medicines, in particular after one year from medicines importation restriction and to answer the key questions, did local manufacturers able to coverage national needs of medicines and what is the patient prices for locally produced compared to imported medicines in different sectors and regions of Sudan. Methodology The WHO/HAI methodology survey tool was adapted to measure the availability and price of locally produced and imported medicines. Patient price and availability were collected from capital cities of 6 states as per WHO/HAI methodology. Data were collected and analyzed for 50 medicines from the 104 medicines restricted to local manufacturer. Availability was based on whether the medicine was in stock on the day of data collection at the surveyed facility. Prices were expressed as median price ratio (MPR). Results Availability of locally manufactured medicines (LMM) was much better than imported medicines (IM), in the public, (47.2% vs. 14%, respectively) and private (63.9% vs. 23.5%, respectively) sectors. Based on median price ratio (MPR), public sector patient prices for locally manufactured medicines were lowered priced and had a median MPR of 2.4 (n=42) than imported medicines which had a median MPR of 4.99 (n=20). In private sector patient prices for locally manufactured medicines were also lowered priced and had a median MPR of 2.76 (n=45) than imported medicines which had a median MPR of 5.53 (n=27). Thus; patients were paying about 52% less for locally produced than for imported medicines in both sectors Conclusion The survey showed low availability of the basket of medicines surveyed in the public and private sectors for imported medicines (I.M), while not achieving WHO’s target of 80 % for locally manufactured medicines (LMM). In developing countries a lot of barriers are well known to business and industrial need to be resolved in order to maintain availability and self-reliance in drug production as a mean of increasing access to medicines.