Evaluating essential medicines for treating childhood cancers: availability, price and affordability study in Ghana.

BMC Cancer
Kofi Boamah MensahFrasia Oosthuizen

Abstract

Access to childhood cancer medicines is a critical global health challenge. There is a lack of sufficient context-specific data in Ghana on access to essential medicines for treating childhood cancers. Here, we present an analysis of essential cancer medicine availability, pricing, and affordability using the pediatric oncology unit of a tertiary hospital as the reference point. Data on prices and availability of 20 strength-specific essential cancer medicines and eight non-cancer medicines were evaluated using the modified World Health Organization (WHO)/Health Action International method. Two pharmacies in the hospital and four private pharmacies around the hospital were surveyed. We assessed their median price ratio using the WHO international reference price guide. The number of days wages per the government daily wage salary was used to calculate the affordability of medicines. The mean availability of essential cancer medicines and non-cancer medicines at the hospital pharmacies were 27 and 38% respectively, and 75 and 84% respectively for private pharmacies. The median price ratio of cancer medicines was 1.85, and non-cancer medicines was 3.75. The estimated cost of medicines for treating a 30 kg child with Acute lymphob...Continue Reading

References

Dec 26, 2012·Pediatrics·Heidi V RussellJ Michael Swint
May 2, 2015·Pediatric Blood & Cancer·Jane RobertsonClive Ondari
Aug 26, 2015·Journal of Clinical Oncology : Official Journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology·Carlos Rodriguez-GalindoThomas Gross
Oct 2, 2015·Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism·Puneet DhamijaSanjay Kalra
Apr 8, 2016·Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice·Abhishek SharmaRichard Laing
Apr 16, 2017·The Lancet Oncology·Eva Steliarova-FoucherUNKNOWN IICC-3 contributors
Jan 8, 2019·The Lancet Oncology·Nickhill BhaktaChristina Fitzmaurice
Nov 1, 2017·Annals of Oncology : Official Journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology·N I ChernyA Eniu

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