AVAILABILITY AND FINANCIAL ACCESSIBILITY OF MEDICINES

This study aims to determine the availability and measure the financial accessibility to drugs for the three most frequent digestive pathologies: cirrhosis duodenal ulcer and gastritis following the method of the World Health Organization and Health Action International. At the end of the survey the average availability of the 18 drugs studied was all below 50%. For specialties the average availability was 32.43% (pharmacies); 24.95% (hospital pharmacy) and 18% (wholesalers). For generics it was 36.34% (dispensaries); 33.33% (hospital pharmacy) and 30.55% (wholesalers). For financial accessibility it was more reasonable with generic drugs than with specialties. The availability of drugs for the main digestive pathologies was low and their accessibility was poor due to the non-availability of their generic equivalents and their excessive cost in private pharmacies.