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About Essential Medicines and Biologicals
Access to medicines and biologicals is part of the guarantee of the right to health for all, its attainment being a perquisite to achieve universality in access to health services. Access to medicines and biologicals is guaranteed through the development and implementation of pharmaceutical policy, integrated within national health policy, addressing primary determinants in product selection, pricing and financing, as well as organization of the provision system. It is a function of the regulatory framework that ensures product quality, but also governs functional and administrative processes that ensure that the population have at its disposition, an acceptable product that is available on a regular basis through the system, at a cost that is affordable to them (either to the individual or the system as a whole)
Strategic Approaches
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Providing advocacy and support to Member States in the development, implementation and monitoring of national policies that facilitate access to, and affordability of, medicines and biologics.
Implementing tools for improving cost-efficient medicine supply systems with emphasis in the public health services and targeted population groups through PAHO’s Strategic Fund.
Applying evidence-based international norms and standards, developed through rigorous, transparent, inclusive and authoritative process.
Promoting a public health approach to innovation and intellectual property rights issues, and adapting interventions that have proved successful | |
