Abstract:
Background: Essential and Priority Medicines are list of medicines developed by the
WHO to meet the priority health care needs of a population. Objectives: To assess the
availability of essential and Priority Medicines, and estimate the level of knowledge about
these lists amongst clinicians and pharmacists in Khartoum State. Design: Descriptive,
cross-sectional study. Setting: Khartoum State’s public and Private Hospitals and Private
drugs outlets. Method: A cross sectional study using The WHO designed method
to calculate medicines availability and self administered questionnaires for clinicians,
pharmacists and patients. Results: The availability of Essential Drugs in Public and
Private Hospital’s Dispensaries were 40.22%, 47.33% and 50.73%, 60.72% for Priority
Drugs respectively. In the Private drugs outlets adjacent to Public and Private Hospitals
the availability of Essential drugs were 60.89%, 49.77%, and 62.86%, 54.8% for
Priority Drugs respectively. The level of knowledge amongst clinicians and pharmacists
was respectively 40% and 74% for Essential Medicines Lists, 31% and 51% for Priority
Medicines Lists, 50% and 28% for Key Medicines Lists. 86% of the patients said
they preferred private pharmacies more than public pharmacies. Conclusion: More
strategies need to be conducted to improve the availability of medicines and to increase
the awareness about EMLs, PMLs and KMLs amongst clinicians and pharmacists to
improve the patient’s health care services.
