Amani Thomas Mori and Bjarne Robberstad’s paper on pharmacoeconomics in Tanzania is a great contribution.
In part, it addresses a generally held hypothesis that pharmacoeconomic studies are impossible in Tanzania and comparable countries because no data is available with which to conduct such analyses. Mori et al clearly demonstrate that researchers have overcome data barriers and successfully deploy pharmacoeconomic methods to guide resource allocation decisions. The lack of data is not entirely the rate limiter but rather the systematic collection and electronic recording of such data – a finding we shared with colleagues in our 2011 Health Policy paper.
Paper-based records are generally available at the level of health care purchasers and health facilities and when captured in an electronic database, various efficiency-related questions can be answered with pharmacoeconomic methods.
More resources are needed to facilitate this process.
Gender and treatment for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in low and middle-income countries: A systematic review
João L. Carapinha, Dennis Ross-Degnan, Paul Ashigbie, Catherine Vialle-Valentin, Anita K. Wagner
PubMed Search Terms
#1 Medicines
((“drugs, generic” or “prescriptions, drug” or (pharmaceutical preparations) or drug utilization or pharmacoepidemiology or pharmacoeconomic* or prescribing[ti] or medicines[ti] or self-medication[ti] or self medication[ti] or “drug safety”[ti] or prescription fees or drugs, non-prescription or drug costs or drug information service[ti] or antibiotic or antiretroviral or ARV or antimicrobial or antimalarial or anti-malarial or “rational drug use” or (rational use[tw] and (medicine[tw] or medicines[tw] or drug[tw] or pharmaceutical[tw] or medication[tw]))) NOT (ah[sh] or ai[sh] or bi[sh] or bl[sh] or bs[sh] or cf[sh] or cs[sh] or ch[sh] or ci[sh] or cy[sh] or em[sh] or en[sh] or im[sh] or ir[sh] or ip[sh] or me[sh] or re[sh] or se[sh] or ul[sh] or ur[sh] or us[sh] or ve[sh]))
#2 Medicines Policies and Systems
(((Drug utilization and guideline adherence) or (pharmaceutical*[ti] and (advertising[ti] or promotion[ti] or marketing[ti])) or pharmaceutical care[ti] or dispensing[ti] or prescri*[ti] or formulary[ti] or formularies or “medication use”[ti] or (“drug use”[ti] not (narcotic or alcohol or illicit or drug abuse or substance-related disorders[mh]))) and (((policy[ti] or policies[ti]) not narcotic) or implement*[ti] or dissem*[ti] or improv*[ti] or chang*[ti] or interven*[ti] or optim*[ti] or influenc*[ti] or impact*[ti] or effect*[ti] or reduc*[ti] or increas*[ti] or modify*[ti] or adherence[ti] or nonadherence[ti] or “before and after”[ti])) or (attitude of health personnel and prescriptions, drug) or ((“persuasive communication” or “educational outreach”) and (“prescribing” or prescriber* or prescription* or pharmaci* or pharmac* or pharmaceutic*)) or (“academic detailing” or “drug detailing” or “counterdetailing” or “counter-detailing” or “detailers”) or (“educational outreach” and (prescribing or prescription*)) or (“drug donation” or “drug donations” or “pharmaceutical management”[tw] or “drug procurement” or “pharmaceutical procurement”) or (drug fund[tw] or ((drug[tw] or medicine[tw]) and revolving fund*) or (“bamako initiative”)) or ((“medicines policy”[ti] or “pharmaceutical policy”[ti] or “drug policy”[ti]) not (addict* or narcotic)) or (essential medicines[ti] or essential drugs[ti] or preferred drug[ti] or pharmaceutical benefits[ti] or pharmaceutical policy[ti]) or (“prescribing indicators”[ti]) or (rational drug use[ti] or “rational pharmacotherapy”[ti] or “medicine taking”[ti] or “dispensing errors”[ti] or “prescribing errors”[ti] or “generic substitution”[ti] or “pharmacy intervention”[ti] or “injection safety” or “injection use” or ((rational use[ti] or irrational use[ti] or appropriate use[ti] or inappropriate use[ti]) and (drugs [ti] or medicines[ti]))) or ((antibiotic use[ti] or antimicrobial use[ti] or antibiotic utilization[ti] or antimicrobial utilization[ti] or antibiotic utilisation[ti] or (malaria*[ti] and drug*[ti] and (use[ti] or utilization[ti] or utilization[ti]))) and ((reduc*[ti] or improv*[ti] or interven*[ti] or optimiz*[ti] or changing[ti] or changes[ti]) or intervention)) or ((antibiotic or antimicrobial or malaria or tuberculosis) and (intervention or controlled trial) and ((prescribing[ti] or reduc*[ti] or improv*[ti] or interven*[ti] or optimi*[ti] or chang*[ti] or guideline*[ti] or effectiveness[ti]) and (clinical guideline or prescribing or quality of care or drug utilization or compliance or adherence or professional competence) or education))
#1 OR #2 to create subset #3, i.e. all research related to medicines with an explicit inclusion of “antibiotic or antiretroviral or ARV or antimicrobial or antimalarial or anti-malarial” as a way to include medicines related to HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria.
#4 Action Titles
((disseminat*[ti] or implement*[ti] or evaluat*[ti] or influenc*[ti] or adherence[ti] or nonadherence[ti] or compliance[ti]) and (guideline[ti] or guidelines[ti] or innova* [ti] or improv*[ti])) or ((efficac*[ti] or assess*[ti] or result[ti] or results[ti] or impact[ti] or impacts[ti] or impacting[ti] or effect*[ti] or evaluat*[ti] or measur*[ti] or fail*[ti]) and (intervention[ti] or interventions[ti] or policy[ti] or policies[ti] or program*[ti] or guideline[ti] or guidelines[ti] or experiment[ti] or experiments[ti] or experimental[ti] or practice*[ti])) or ((decrease[ti] or decreases[ti] or decreasing[ti] or reduce[ti] or reduc*[ti] or increase[ti] or increasing[ti] or controlling[ti] or facilitat*[ti] or shift[ti] or collaborat*[ti]) and (error[ti] or errors[ti] or irrational[ti] or inappropriate[ti])) or ((monitoring[ti] or auditing[ti] or “audit and feedback”[ti] or changing[ti] or chang*[ti] or improv*[ti] or increas*[ti] or optimi*[ti]) and (use[ti] or knowledge[ti] or practice[ti] or practices[ti] or behavior[ti] or behav*[ti] or compliance[ti] or comply[ti] or non compliance[ti] or adherence[ti] or nonadherence[ti] or management[ti] or treatment[ti] or safety[ti] or quality[ti] or implement*[ti])) or self-medication[ti] or health seeking[ti]
#3 AND #4 to create subset #5, i.e. all medicines research that point to interventions and thus empirical research (experimental and quasi-experimental (cohort studies, case-control studies, etc.)
#6 Specific Disease Areas – HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria
(*malaria*[ti] or tuberculosis[ti] or TB[ti] or HIV[ti] or human immunodeficiency virus[ti] or *malaria* or tuberculosis or TB or HIV or human immunodeficiency virus)
#5 AND #6 to create subset #7, i.e. all medicines research that point to intervention research about HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria studies. This subset contains abstracts with and without gender explicitly mentioned in the abstract.
#8 Gender
(men[MeSH Terms] OR women[MeSH Terms]) OR gender OR sex[MeSH Terms] OR sex factors[MeSH Terms] OR sex characteristics[MeSH Terms] OR sex differences OR men OR man OR male OR women OR woman OR female OR sex OR sex factors OR sex characteristics
#5 AND #6 AND #7 to create subset #9, i.e. all medicines research that point to intervention research constrained to HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria studies that include a gender dimension.
#10 Exclusions
historical article[pt] or editorial[pt] or news[pt] or letter[pt] or comment[pt] or biography[pt] or festschrift[pt] or interview[pt] or letter[pt] or news[ti] or biography[ti] or newspaper article[pt] or opinion[ti] or in vitro or tolerability or outbreak or pathogenesis or etiology or aetiology or neutropenia or antineoplastic or single-blind or double-blind or drug evaluation or therapeutic equivalency or bioequivalence or synthesis or cell or plant or transplant or clone or immunology or microbiology or metabolism or pharmacokinetics or toxicity or biosynthesis or chemistry or pharmacognosy or biotechnology or cytology or embryology or genetics or bacteremia or neutropenia or vaccination or congenital or genetic or neutrophils or phagocytosis or susceptibility or drugs, Chinese or illicit or methadone or heroin or narcotic or “anatomy and histology”[sh] or “animals”[mh] or radio*[mh]
#9 NOT #10 to create subset #11, i.e. excluding material that relates to interventions not of interest such as clinical trials, animal and plant studies, and excluding material not considered empirical research such as newspapers, letter to the editor, editorial, etc. This is performed on search #7 that contains articles with and without gender explicitly mentioned in the abstract.
#12 Developing Countries
Afghanistan OR Albania OR Algeria OR Andorra OR Angola OR Antigua and Barbuda OR Argentina OR Armenia OR Aruba OR Azerbaijan OR Bahrain OR Bangladesh OR Barbados OR Belarus OR Belize OR Benin OR Bhutan OR Bolivia OR Bosnia and Herzegovina OR Botswana OR Brazil OR Bulgaria OR Burkina Faso OR Burundi OR Cambodia OR Cameroon OR Cape Verde OR Cayman Islands OR Central African Republic OR Chad OR Chile OR China OR Colombia OR Comoros OR Congo, Dem. Rep. OR Congo, Rep. OR Costa Rica OR Côte d’Ivoire OR Croatia OR Cuba OR Czech Republic OR Djibouti OR Dominica OR Dominican Republic OR Ecuador OR Egypt OR El Salvador OR Equatorial Guinea OR Eritrea OR Estonia OR Ethiopia OR Fiji OR Gabon OR Gambia OR Georgia OR Ghana OR Gibraltar OR Greece OR Grenada OR Guatemala OR Guinea OR Guinea-Bissau OR Guyana OR Haiti OR Honduras OR Hungary OR India OR Indonesia OR Iran OR Iraq OR Jamaica OR Jordan OR Kazakhstan OR Kenya OR Kiribati OR Korea OR Kosovo OR Kyrgyz Republic OR Lao PDR OR Latvia OR Lebanon OR Lesotho OR Liberia OR Libya OR Lithuania OR Macao OR Macedonia OR Madagascar OR Malawi OR Malaysia OR Maldives OR Mali OR Malta OR Marshall Islands OR Mauritania OR Mauritius OR Mayotte OR Mexico OR Micronesia OR Moldova OR Mongolia OR Montenegro OR Morocco OR Mozambique OR Myanmar OR Namibia OR Nepal OR Netherlands Antilles OR New Caledonia OR Nicaragua OR Niger OR Nigeria OR Northern Mariana Islands OR Oman OR Pakistan OR Palau OR Panama OR Papua New Guinea OR Paraguay OR Peru OR Philippines OR Poland OR Puerto Rico OR Romania OR Russia OR Rwanda OR Samoa OR San Marino OR São Tomé and Principe OR Saudi Arabia OR Senegal OR Serbia OR Seychelles OR Sierra Leone OR Slovak Republic OR Slovenia OR Solomon Islands OR Somalia OR South Africa OR Sri Lanka OR St. Kitts and Nevis OR St. Lucia OR St. Vincent and the Grenadines OR Sudan OR Suriname OR Swaziland OR Syrian Arab Republic OR Tajikistan OR Tanzania OR Thailand OR Timor-Leste OR Togo OR Tonga OR Trinidad and Tobago OR Tunisia OR Turkey OR Turkmenistan OR Tuvalu OR Uganda OR Ukraine OR Uruguay OR Uzbekistan OR Vanuatu OR Venezuela OR Vietnam OR West Bank and Gaza OR Yemen OR Zambia OR Zimbabwe
#11 AND #12 to create subset #13, i.e. all medicines research in low and middle-income countries that point to intervention research constrained to HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria studies including all gender specific articles.
Analogous search terms were used for JStor, ISI Web of Science, the International Network for the Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD) Bibliography, the disease-specific INRUD ART Adherence Bibliography, and the WHO Database on Medicines Use in Primary Care in Developing and Transitional Countries.
OPEN LETTER TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE WORLD BANK IN SUPPORT OF DR. NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA’S CANDIDACY FOR PRESIDENT
Dear Honourable Board of Directors,
As the Graduates of the NEPAD Business Foundation African Leadership Programme (NBF-ALP) we proactively contribute towards changes that support good governance. We collaborate in ways that aim at ensuring inclusiveness and improving institutions to support growth in developing nations. As future leaders we are conscious that identifying and supporting competent and deserving candidates is an important element in our work.
We are concerned with the historical practice among European and American representatives to preserve the Presidency of the World Bank among candidates from these regions. This practice erodes global inclusiveness, ignores emerging regions such as Africa, and overlooks formidable and competent leaders. As a consequence, the tacit arrangement threatens and weakens the World Bank’s credibility in low and middle-income countries, the current and future drivers of global economic development. There are candidates that are as good if not better than those appointed by tradition, such as Dr. Okonjo-Iweala.
Unlike other candidates, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has a long history with the Bank starting as a development economist and more recently serving as its Managing Director. She was instrumental in various reform initiatives on economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle-East, and East Asia. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has the respect of many leaders of low and middle-income countries, and the international community. She is embedded in relevant social networks that will facilitate the implementation of real-world policies. Moreover, if the Bank is serious about gender equity, as it professes in many of its activities, then appointing Dr. Okonjo-Iweala will be a reaffirmation of your commitment to these ideals. To this end, we resolutely support Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy for President of the World Bank. It’s an opportunity to implement the World Bank’s international strategy through a new brand of African leadership.
In many ways the Bank’s main challenge in low and middle-income countries is to root-out corruption at the level of governments and the private sector. Your credibility to do so depends on your willingness to acknowledge and build relationships with these very countries and acknowledge the rich human capital and capability of these nations. If the Bank looks beyond its outdated arrangement among European and American representatives, and seeks beyond your own confines for competent, alternative candidates, you will find that you will be lead to Dr. Okonjo-Iweala.
Yours sincerely
| João Carapinha | Layla Gibbons | Desyree Lotter |
| Anisa Mills | Aaron Shamu | Egideo Leite |
| Boma Anga | Ama Ayivor | Lungelwa Tyali |
| Oyesola Oyebanji |
Graduates of the NBF-ALP
______________________________________________________________________________
About the NEPAD Business Foundation (NBF) African Leadership Programme (ALP)
The NBF ALP concentrates on enhancing capacity and leadership potential of African top managers from the public and private sectors s well as NGOs.
About the NEPAD Business Foundation
The NBF operates in South Africa with extensive business networks in the Southern African sub-region and the Continent as a whole, driven by the vision to contribute to a vibrant African economy through private sector development, thus positioning the continent as competitive global player. The mission of the NBF is to support the delivery of the NEPAD objectives through the active participation of Africa’s private sector.
The book ‘What You Should Know About Generic Medicine?’ is published to debunk the myth that generic drugs are of lower quality as compared to branded drugs. Programme Chairman for the USM’s Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy and also editorial chairman, Associate Prof. Mohamed Azmi Ahmad Hassali said generic medicines should be safe and as efficacious as branded or innovator product. Director of USM Press, Profesor Dato’ Dr. Md. Salleh Yaapar who was also present at the ceremony said this book will help patients as well as heath practitioners to educate the public on the flawed perception of generic drugs. Dean School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PPSF), Prof Madya Syed Azhar Syed Sulaiman said this book has a very significant role to educate the public on this issue. The book will be on sale at the USM co-operative bookshop and MPH Bookstores at RM 10 (USD 3.50) per copy. Order Form.
