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Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines

Background: Developing countries, such as the Philippines, started implementing policies to improve access to medicines, which is a vital step toward universal healthcare coverage. This study aimed to evaluate the prices, availability and affordability of prescribed medicines for diabetes, hyperchol...

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Autores principales: Lambojon, Krizzia, Chang, Jie, Saeed, Amna, Hayat, Khezar, Li, Pengchao, Jiang, Minghuan, Atif, Naveel, Desalegn, Gebrehaweria Kassa, Khan, Faiz Ullah, Fang, Yu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32708060
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17145242
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author Lambojon, Krizzia
Chang, Jie
Saeed, Amna
Hayat, Khezar
Li, Pengchao
Jiang, Minghuan
Atif, Naveel
Desalegn, Gebrehaweria Kassa
Khan, Faiz Ullah
Fang, Yu
author_facet Lambojon, Krizzia
Chang, Jie
Saeed, Amna
Hayat, Khezar
Li, Pengchao
Jiang, Minghuan
Atif, Naveel
Desalegn, Gebrehaweria Kassa
Khan, Faiz Ullah
Fang, Yu
author_sort Lambojon, Krizzia
collection PubMed
description Background: Developing countries, such as the Philippines, started implementing policies to improve access to medicines, which is a vital step toward universal healthcare coverage. This study aimed to evaluate the prices, availability and affordability of prescribed medicines for diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension with the exemption of 12% value-added tax in the Philippines. Methods: The prices and availability of 50 medicines were collected in August 2019 from 36 public and 42 private medicine outlets in six regions of the Philippines, following a modified methodology developed by the World Health Organization and Health Action International. Availability is reported as the percentage of outlets in which the surveyed medicine was found at the time of visit. Medicine prices are expressed as median unit prices (MUPs) in Philippine Peso. Affordability is calculated based on the number of days’ wages required for the lowest-paid unskilled government worker to purchase a monthly treatment. Results: The mean availability of surveyed medicines was low in both public and private sectors, with 1.3% for originator brands (OBs) and 25.0% for lowest-priced generics (LPGs) in public outlets, and 34.7% and 35.4% in private outlets, respectively. The MUP of medicines were higher in private outlets, and OBs have higher unit price compared to the generic equivalents. Treatments with OBs were unaffordable, except for gliclazide, but the affordability of most LPGs is generally good. Conclusion: Access to medicines in both sectors was affected by low availability. High prices of OBs influenced the affordability of medicines even with tax exemption. A review of policies and regulations should be initiated for a better access to medicines in the Philippines.
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spelling pubmed-74003982020-08-23 Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines Lambojon, Krizzia Chang, Jie Saeed, Amna Hayat, Khezar Li, Pengchao Jiang, Minghuan Atif, Naveel Desalegn, Gebrehaweria Kassa Khan, Faiz Ullah Fang, Yu Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: Developing countries, such as the Philippines, started implementing policies to improve access to medicines, which is a vital step toward universal healthcare coverage. This study aimed to evaluate the prices, availability and affordability of prescribed medicines for diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension with the exemption of 12% value-added tax in the Philippines. Methods: The prices and availability of 50 medicines were collected in August 2019 from 36 public and 42 private medicine outlets in six regions of the Philippines, following a modified methodology developed by the World Health Organization and Health Action International. Availability is reported as the percentage of outlets in which the surveyed medicine was found at the time of visit. Medicine prices are expressed as median unit prices (MUPs) in Philippine Peso. Affordability is calculated based on the number of days’ wages required for the lowest-paid unskilled government worker to purchase a monthly treatment. Results: The mean availability of surveyed medicines was low in both public and private sectors, with 1.3% for originator brands (OBs) and 25.0% for lowest-priced generics (LPGs) in public outlets, and 34.7% and 35.4% in private outlets, respectively. The MUP of medicines were higher in private outlets, and OBs have higher unit price compared to the generic equivalents. Treatments with OBs were unaffordable, except for gliclazide, but the affordability of most LPGs is generally good. Conclusion: Access to medicines in both sectors was affected by low availability. High prices of OBs influenced the affordability of medicines even with tax exemption. A review of policies and regulations should be initiated for a better access to medicines in the Philippines. MDPI 2020-07-21 2020-07 /pmc/articles/PMC7400398/ /pubmed/32708060 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17145242 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lambojon, Krizzia
Chang, Jie
Saeed, Amna
Hayat, Khezar
Li, Pengchao
Jiang, Minghuan
Atif, Naveel
Desalegn, Gebrehaweria Kassa
Khan, Faiz Ullah
Fang, Yu
Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines
title Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines
title_full Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines
title_fullStr Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines
title_full_unstemmed Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines
title_short Prices, Availability and Affordability of Medicines with Value-Added Tax Exemption: A Cross-Sectional Survey in the Philippines
title_sort prices, availability and affordability of medicines with value-added tax exemption: a cross-sectional survey in the philippines
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32708060
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17145242
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