Essential drug list - Essay Example

etardation” and claims that the “health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent upon the fullest co-operation of individuals and States”1. To become a member of the WHO a state, which is already a member of United Nations, should accept its Constitution. The other countries can become a member in condition that their application has been approved by a World Health Assembly. Now there are 193 member states in the WHO. The WHO activities in the sphere of pharmaceutical preparations are mainly based on the WHO medicines strategy that was adopted on the fifty-fourth World Health Assemble on 21st of May 20012.

This strategy is directed on assistance to governments in providing appropriate life and healthcare protection and improvement through liquidation of the huge difference between the appropriate medicines usage possibilities and reality, thus for millions of people such medicines are absent, unaffordable, unsafe, of bed quality or used in the wrong way. In 1977 the WHO provided a guideline for all national governments, which is called Model List of Essentials Medicines. Its main objective is to ensure governments that they have in stock an inventory of medicines necessary to provide a sufficient healthcare.

The WHO defines essential medicines as “those that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of the population; they should therefore be available at all times in adequate amounts and in appropriate dosage forms, at a price the community can