Pharmacoeconomics in Africa: needs, prospect and challenges

Abstract

Africa as a continent has experienced a continuous increase in the cost of healthcare as its demands increase. With many of these African countries living below the poverty threshold, Africans continue to die from preventable and curable diseases. Population increases have led to an increase in demands for healthcare, which unfortunately have been met with inequitable distribution of drugs. Hence, the outcomes from healthcare interventions are frequently not maximized. These problems notably call for some economic principles and policies to guide medication selection, procurement, or donation for population prioritization or health insurance. Pharmacoeconomics drives efficient use of scarce or limited resources to maximize healthcare benefits and reduce costs. It also brings to play tools that rate therapy choice based on the quality of life added to the patient after a choice of intervention was made over an alternative. In this paper, we commented on the needs, prospect, and challenges of pharmacoeconomics in Africa.

Potential for biosimilars in rheumatology in Africa

“…It also introduces methods that evaluate therapy decisions based on the improvement in the patient’s quality of life that results from selecting the intervention over an alternative. The literature is scarce on guidance for addressing local access challenges, including technical, regulatory, affordability and other healthcare delivery issues 9…”

Pharmacists’ awareness, knowledge, and attitudes regarding pharmacoeconomics in the Al-Madinah Al-Munawara region, Saudi Arabia

“…However, pharmacoeconomics is a new field and has not been incorporated completely into practice in many countries, including Saudi Arabia. 1,[13][14][15][16][17] Fewer than 50% of the countries that participated in the abovementioned survey by Dickson et al 10 reported using pharmacoeconomic assessment to establish the value-for-money of new pharmaceuticals, and some stated that they used it mainly for cost-containment. In addition, a study showed that most drug therapy decisions in Saudi Arabia are based on clinical outcomes, such as safety and efficacy associated with a treatment alternative without regard for their cost effectiveness 18 .…”