Drug and Medical Supply Shortages

For FY23 Congress has included funds to increase US Agency for International Development (USAID) activities to support frontline health workers.

Fund for Global Health welcomes this step forward. We believe Congress should

also explicitly address the critical need to improve delivery of basic medicines

and supplies for frontline workers, without which they cannot deliver effective care to patients.

Drug shortages in frontline primary care lead to prolonged illness and death [1]

  • In Ethiopia, 54% of physicians report seeing patients who have died due to lack of resources, including essential medicines and supplies [2].

  • In Nigeria, shortages of sterile gloves have led to midwives improvising, using nylon bags on their hands during labor and delivery. This can lead to infection, one of the main causes of maternal and child mortality in the country [3].

  • In Haiti, 75% of healthcare centers have shortages of medicine and key supplies. This means that frontline health workers have been unable to effectively fight cholera and the shortages have prevented 30,000 pregnant women from receiving proper care [4].

  • In Malawi, public health centers only have 40% of the antibiotics they need to treat patients for bacterial infections, including pneumonia, which is the largest global killer of young children [5].

  • In Yemen, only half of health facilities are fully functioning, and most lack basic medicines, leaving 2⁄3 of the population or 20.1 million people without access to basic health care [6].

    We would like to see USAID do more to reduce shortages of essential medicines and medical supplies.

Sources:

Shukar, S., et al. Drug shortage: Causes, impact, and Mitigation Strategies. Frontiers in

Pharmacology. 2021; 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.693426. Accessed Sept 20,

2022.

Defaye, F.B., Desalegn, D., Danis, M. A survey of Ethiopian physicians’ experiences of

bedside rationing: extensive resource scarcity, tough decisions and adverse

consequences. BMC Health Serv Res 2015; 15, 467. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-015-1131-6.

Accessed Oct 18, 2022.

Banjo, D. Nigeria's champion of maternal and child health. PassBlue. 2022, Jan 19.

https://www.passblue.com. Accessed Sept 20, 2022.

Lives being lost in Haiti as life-saving health services risk coming to “standstill”. United

Nations Haiti. 2022, Sept 26. https://haiti.un.org/Accessed Sept 25, 2022.

Khuluza, F., & Heide, L. Availability and affordability of antimalarial and antibiotic

medicines in Malawi. PLOS ONE. 2017; 12(4). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175399.

Accessed Sept 20, 2022.

USAID. Health: Fact sheet: Yemen. U.S. Agency for International Development. 2022, April

22. https://www.usaid.gov/yemen/fact-sheets/health-fact-sheet. Accessed Oct 21, 2022.

Cited Sources