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Home > English > Communiqués > Appropriate drug donations - the time to act is now!
June 11, 1999: Appropriate drug donations - the time to act is now!
Press conference at the European expert seminar on appropriate drug donations
(June 11 and 12, 1999)There is an
urgent need to improve the quality of drug donations worldwide, participants heard at a European Expert Seminar on Appropriate Drug Donations heard at a meeting in Leiden, the Netherlands, Friday, June 11.
Representatives from 60 organizations in 16 countries met to learn from past experience and plan effective strategies for the future.Donations of drugs to the refugees of Kosovo in Albania and in the Former Yugolav Republic of Macedonia
(FYROM) are "inappropriate and of low quality", according to Gilles-Bernard Forte, an advisor for Central and Eastern Europe for the World Health Organization's (WHO) Programme for Pharmaceuticals.
Mr Forte noted that despite the efforts made by
ministries of health of recipient countries, WHO and other international agencies in the field to promote good donation practices, reports indicate that large quantities of donated medicines are unusable and wasted.
About 30% of drugs donated directly by countries, and not coordinated through programs by international agencies. In Albania, for example, an estimated 20% of the donated medicines, worth $9 million, have only been
channeled through appropriate coordination structures."Tons of medicines to treat cholera and acute diarrhea are stockpiled," he said. "Meanwhile, medicines for non-communicable and chronic diseases are in great need."
A survey by WHO May 10 to 19 in FYROM highlighted
the poor compliance of relief agencies with WHO's interagency Guidelines for Drug Donations. In one donation, more than 40% of the medicines were considered nonessential or did not comply with national standards. About
30% were expired and had less than year remaining shelf life.This same situation was repeated in Central America in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, October 1998, one of the worst natural disasters in history. According to Maria Teresa Gago from the US-based
Pan-American Health Organization, there was a massive response from the international community. In Honduras alone, more than 1.5 million people were affected.The health infrastructure was devastated - 23 of the 30 hospitals had their water distribution system
either partially or completely destroyed; 123 health clinics suffered serious damage and 68 were destroyed."In Honduras, we have found that despite the good intentions of many charitable organizations,
inappropriate donations were received. For example, pharmaceuticals were not in a familiar language; many donations had expired or were about to expire and some did not correspond to the country's disease
patterns," she said.As a result,
drugs and medical equipment are being stored in a temporary warehouse. It will take many man-hours to sort through the donations, Ms Gago noted, valuable time that could have been spent more effectively elsewhere:
"It was a disaster situation itself."The recent events in the Balkans and Central America highlight the need for implementation of the WHO inter-agency guidelines, according to conference organizers. Developed three years ago and
revised in March 1999, they have not yet been adopted by the United States nor by the EU member states and have been the subject of much controversy within the aid community and pharmaceutical industry.
"Drug donations in emergency situations are essential,
but they can cause as much harm as they can do good," according to Mark Raijmakers of Wemos, a Dutch based NGO concerned with international health issues. "With the Kosovo crisis, we have the opportunity to
bring the problems to light and underscore the need for appropriate donations. We simply cannot risk repeating the mistakes that were made in the past."Another issue is how to dispose of inappropriate drugs in recipient countries. As one participant
pointed out, expired pharmaceuticals turn into chemical waste, with all of the associated costs and potential health threats to the area.Wemos,DIFÄM and PIMED used the seminar to launch a Europe-wide awareness campaign, designed to inform national governments and donors of the urgent need to implement theWHO Guidelines.
A condensed report of the seminar's first plenary day can be found on these Web pages. |
