25 Jul 2016

There is a need to address the escalating costs of medicinal drugs  in Africa, which account for as much as 30 per cent to above 50 per cent of healthcare budgets.

This was said by University of Botswana (UB) deputy vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, Prof. Martin Mokgwathi when officiating at the 2^nd Medicines Utilisation Research in Africa (MURIA) Group Training Workshop and Symposium July 25.

Prof. Mokgwathi said the performance of health facilities globally depended on the availability and use of pharmaceutical products. 

For this reason, he said there was also an urgent need to address the emergence of resistance, especially to antibiotics and antiretroviral drugs, and the lack of knowledge about the variability in use of medicines within and between African countries.

Drugs, he said, were not only needed for treating diseases, “but the public’s confidence in health workers and satisfaction with health services depends on a sustainable, reliable and affordable supply of medicines.”

“Unfortunately, even where pharmaceuticals are available in adequate supplies- much of them have been reported to be wasted because of poor storage and inappropriate use,” he added. 

Prof. Mokgwathi noted that the inappropriate use of medicines was a worldwide problem with health and economic related consequences such as adverse drug reactions, therapeutic failure, prolonged hospitalisation, development of drug resistance and increased cost of healthcare.

Furthermore, he also noted that antibiotics resistance was now a major issue confronting healthcare providers and their patients, which has made selecting optimal antibiotic regiments more difficult.

To address the challenge, MURIA seeks to improve the appropriate use of medicine in Africa, and to improve the quality of medicine utilisation in Africa through involvement of multi-disciplinary groups. 

Through its multi-disciplinary network of people striving to promote sustainable, rational medicine use, MURIA also seeks to improve the quality of life of patients in Africa and beyond through collaborative research and capacity building. 

This, Prof. Mokgwathi said, would be achieved through training, collaborative research, information sharing and facilitation of access to data addressing challenges to current drug utilisation research in Africa. The three-day symposium trains African scientists on using research tools such as daily defined dose concept or method to be able to assess exposure to drug therapy in health facilities in Africa and to develop and evaluate point prevalence studies to antibiotics.

In his welcome remarks, the acting dean of UB’s Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Mathew Tanko, said the symposium was a platform for information sharing, including success stories and challenges from different nations.

The Medicines Utilisation Research in Africa was officially inaugurated in 2015 at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and its first meeting was held in July 2015 at UB. Ends