MoH updates essential drugs list

The Ministry of Health (MoH) has responded to calls from civil society organisations (CSOs) to update the Malawi Essential Medicine List (MEML) which has included 13 United Nations (UN) lifesaving commodities for women and children.

The 13 UN commodities will help the country to avert women from dying from preventable and treatable pregnancy and childbirth complications.

Speaking at a press briefing in Blantyre on Saturday, Maziko Matemba, Health Rights Education Programme (Hrep) executive director, whose organisation led 15 other organisations working in reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health (RMNCH) in petitioning the ministry to give the MEML update in November, said the ministry has informed the organisations that the final printed copies of the updated MEML 2015 is expected to be out by the end of February.

Matemba said Hrep and its RMNCH coalition partners will continue monitoring the process of actualisation in terms of making sure that the commodities supply chain management is more accessible by all the women and children when they need them regardless of where they are.

Said Matemba: “The Essential Medicines List is very important because it prescribes and guides the procurement of drugs and medicines which are used in the Malawi health system.

“Not including these life-saving interventions in the Malawi Essential Medicines List was a missed opportunity in the efforts to arrest the alarming maternal and newborn mortality rates in Malawi,”

However, the country had not updated its essential medicines list since 2009.