Citation:
Abstract:
The right to access essential medicines and medical technologies is crucial to attain the highest-quality health care for all citizens of the world. Unfortunately, in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world, patients’ ability to access quality essential medicines still remains a critical challenge. Barriers that impact the quality of essential medicines from chronic communicable and chronic non-communicable diseases lie within three specific areas (3A’s): availability, accountability, and adherence. First, unnecessarily complex supply chain management, poor operational procedures, and inadequate financing for health lead to low availability of medicines. Second, corruption contributes to falsified and substandard medicines and low accountability of the supply chain to the patients who rely on it. Lastly, poor patient adherence to medicines is affected by low health literacy, lack of communication between providers and patients, and social stigma of diseases. Based on our on-the-ground experiences working in western Kenya, we propose solutions that target each of these challenges to improve access and quality of medicines. Through this chapter, we hope to compel chemists to apply and focus their efforts to create transformative chemical techniques with the potential to significantly improve quality of medicines, to improve patient outcomes, and to alter the delivery of care to patients all over the world.