Abstract
to assess drug donations in terms of their adherence to the drug donation guidelines put forth by the World Health Organization (WHO). in 2009 we searched the academic and lay literature - journal articles, media articles and industry and donor web sites - to identify reports about drug donations made from 2000 to 2008. Publications focusing on molecular mechanisms of drug action, general descriptions of guidelines or specific one-time drug donations before 2000 were excluded. For cases with sufficient information, we assessed compliance with each of the 12 articles of WHO's guidelines. we found 95 articles describing 96 incidents of drug donations between 2000 and 2008. Of these, 50 were made in response to disaster situations, 43 involved the long-term donation of a drug to treat a specific disease and 3 were drug recycling cases. Disaster-related donations were less likely to comply with the guidelines, particularly in terms of meeting the recipient's needs, quality assurance and shelf-life, packaging and labelling, and information management. Recipient countries were burdened with the costs of destroying the drugs received through inappropriate donations. Although long-term donations were more likely to comply with WHO guidelines related to quality assurance and labelling, they did not consistently meet the needs of the recipients. Furthermore, they discouraged local drug production and development. drug donations can do more harm than good for the recipient countries. Strengthening the structures and systems for coordinating and monitoring drug donations and ensuring that these are driven by recipient needs will improve adherence to the drug donation guidelines set forth by WHO.
Highlights
Drug donations are pharmaceutical agents given to countries or health facilities at no cost by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), other countries, private corporations or groups of donors
The donations may be made for different purposes, such as providing assistance during emergency situations, supplying specific medicines over the long term or recycling drugs
We searched PubMed and Google Scholar using the terms “drug donation(s)” and “program(s)(me)(mes)” and performed snowball searches based on the names of specific products, companies or events associated with drug donations as we found them
Summary
Drug donations are pharmaceutical agents given to countries or health facilities at no cost by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), other countries, private corporations or groups of donors. The donations may be made for different purposes, such as providing assistance during emergency situations, supplying specific medicines over the long term or recycling drugs (e.g. donating leftover drugs just before they expire if a clinic purchased more than it needed). Drug donations are intended to provide the medicines needed to alleviate suffering, yet drug donations often generate problems.[2] For example, the donated drugs may not meet the needs of the recipient and donor agencies may fail to comply with local procedures for approving, labelling, storing or inventorying medicines. The donated drugs are often labelled in a language foreign to the recipient population, they may fail to meet the quality standards established by the recipient country or they may even have expired. If the donated drugs have a high declared value, import taxes and overhead costs may be high; if the quantity of the donation is larger than required to meet the recipient’s needs, the recipient may have to bear the cost of properly disposing of the excess
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
