OBJECTIVES Diabetes is a major public health concern worldwide, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Limited data exist on the status of access to diabetes medicines in LMICs. We assessed the utilisation and affordability of diabetes medicines in Iran as a middle-income country. DESIGN We used a retrospective time-series design (2000-2012) and assessed national diab...

•Shortages were the main reason for unavailability of essential medicines used to treat paediatric cancers in Europe.•Financial barriers applied mostly lower-income countries and newly approved expensive across all settings.•Lack child-friendly formulations caused concerns over alignment with prescribed protocol parental distress.•There marked differences between access pain control children un...

The aim of the present study was to characterize the utilization of medicines by the Brazilian population, using data from the Brazilian World Health Survey. Medicines were grouped according to the active pharmaceutical ingredient based on an adaptation of the World Health Organization standard list of essential medicines. The analysis included the characteristics of individuals who keep medici...

BACKGROUND The World Health Organization (WHO) promotes the development of national Essential Medicines Lists (EMLs) in order to improve the availability and use of medicines considered essential within health care systems. However, despite over 3 decades of international efforts, studies show an inconsistent pattern in the availability of essential medicines. We evaluated and compared the avai...