Essential drugs in diabetes: South and South East Asian perspective

Introduction

The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEMs) is not only a guide for rational prescription, but also a barometer of a country′s health priorities, whereas most NLEMs are similar to the World Health Organization (WHO) list, each country′s list has additions, deletions and modification, which reflect its unique health related challenges.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

The South East Asia region (SEARO) of the WHO, along with neighboring South Asian world′s countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, is home to some of the world′s, largest populations. This region also plays unwilling host to the diabetes pandemic: Almost all of its countries care for significant number of people living with diabetes.

In such a situation, it becomes necessary to study the NLEMs of these nations, to assess if adequate provision has been made for essential antidiabetic drugs. An online search was performed to identify the latest NLEMs of the 11 SEARO countries. These are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People′s Republic of Korea (DPRK), India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor Leste. Two geographically contiguous member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), viz. Afghanistan and Pakistan, were also included in the search.

National List of Essential Medicines were available for all states except DPRK, for which the WHO has issued a list of life-saving drugs to guide potential donors.

The antidiabetic drugs listed each NLEM were analyzed according to class of drugs, and strengths. Various NLEMs were compared with assess similarities and contrasts.

• References

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