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Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines?
BACKGROUND: To evaluate medicine prices, availability and affordability in Brazil, considering the differences across three types of medicines (originator brands, generics and similar medicines) and different types of facilities (private pharmacies, public sector pharmacies and “popular pharmacies”)...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3511298/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22436555 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-8603-8-6 |
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author | Bertoldi, Andréa Dâmaso Helfer, Ana Paula Camargo, Aline L Tavares, Noêmia U L Kanavos, Panos |
author_facet | Bertoldi, Andréa Dâmaso Helfer, Ana Paula Camargo, Aline L Tavares, Noêmia U L Kanavos, Panos |
author_sort | Bertoldi, Andréa Dâmaso |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: To evaluate medicine prices, availability and affordability in Brazil, considering the differences across three types of medicines (originator brands, generics and similar medicines) and different types of facilities (private pharmacies, public sector pharmacies and “popular pharmacies”). METHODS: Data on prices and availability of 50 medicines were collected in 56 pharmacies across six cities in Southern Brazil using the World Health Organization / Health Action International methodology. Median prices obtained were divided by international reference prices to derive the median price ratio (MPR). RESULTS: In the private sector, prices were 8.6 MPR for similar medicines, 11.3 MRP for generics and 18.7 MRP for originator brands, respectively. Mean availability was 65%, 74% and 48% for originator brands, generics and similar medicines, respectively. In the public sector, mean availability of similar medicines was 2–7 times higher than that of generics. Mean overall availability in the public sector ranged from 68.8% to 81.7%. In “popular pharmacies”, mean availability was greater than 90% in all cities. CONCLUSIONS: Availability of medicines in the public sector does not meet the challenge of supplying essential medicines to the entire population, as stated in the Brazilian constitution. This has unavoidable repercussions for affordability, particularly amongst the lower socio-economic strata. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3511298 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-35112982012-12-01 Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? Bertoldi, Andréa Dâmaso Helfer, Ana Paula Camargo, Aline L Tavares, Noêmia U L Kanavos, Panos Global Health Research BACKGROUND: To evaluate medicine prices, availability and affordability in Brazil, considering the differences across three types of medicines (originator brands, generics and similar medicines) and different types of facilities (private pharmacies, public sector pharmacies and “popular pharmacies”). METHODS: Data on prices and availability of 50 medicines were collected in 56 pharmacies across six cities in Southern Brazil using the World Health Organization / Health Action International methodology. Median prices obtained were divided by international reference prices to derive the median price ratio (MPR). RESULTS: In the private sector, prices were 8.6 MPR for similar medicines, 11.3 MRP for generics and 18.7 MRP for originator brands, respectively. Mean availability was 65%, 74% and 48% for originator brands, generics and similar medicines, respectively. In the public sector, mean availability of similar medicines was 2–7 times higher than that of generics. Mean overall availability in the public sector ranged from 68.8% to 81.7%. In “popular pharmacies”, mean availability was greater than 90% in all cities. CONCLUSIONS: Availability of medicines in the public sector does not meet the challenge of supplying essential medicines to the entire population, as stated in the Brazilian constitution. This has unavoidable repercussions for affordability, particularly amongst the lower socio-economic strata. BioMed Central 2012-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3511298/ /pubmed/22436555 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-8603-8-6 Text en Copyright ©2012 Bertoldi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Bertoldi, Andréa Dâmaso Helfer, Ana Paula Camargo, Aline L Tavares, Noêmia U L Kanavos, Panos Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? |
title | Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? |
title_full | Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? |
title_fullStr | Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? |
title_full_unstemmed | Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? |
title_short | Is the Brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? |
title_sort | is the brazilian pharmaceutical policy ensuring population access to essential medicines? |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3511298/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22436555 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-8603-8-6 |
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