Access to Essential Medicines in Ghana: A Survey of Availability of Children’s Medicines in Medicine Outlets in the Ashanti Region

The objective of this study was to assess the availability of 42 children’s essential medicines contained in the Standard Treatment Guidelines (STG) of Ghana in the 27 districts of Ashanti Region. Five hundred medicine outlets comprising of hospitals/health centers/clinics, community pharmacies and chemical shops were surveyed using a validated structured questionnaire. The results were analysed and the availability of the 42 medicines in each district was determined. The average availability of children’s medicines across the region was 41.3% (range: 26.4-52%), with the Kumasi Metropolis (KM) and Bosome Freho (BF) district having the highest and lowest availabilities, respectively. Six (14.3%) of the medicines, omeprazole, tinidazole, furosemide and spironolactone suspensions, and praziquantel and thiabendazole syrups had zero availability in the Region while ferrous sulphate syrup (95%), albendazole suspension (90%) and paracetamol syrup (88.8%) had the highest availabilities. Three hundred and twenty three different formulations of the 42 medicines were identified with foreign and local manufacturers accounting for 198 (61.3%) and 125 (38.7%) formulations, respectively. India (38.7%) and United Kingdom (35.5%) were the major foreign manufacturers. The duration of stock-outs was shorter for private than public/government facilities and generally ranged from up to one week (68.4 %) to over one month (3%). Reasons for the low or non-availability of children’s medicines included the lack of funds, non-prescription by physicians, unavailability of medicines at wholesalers and lack of awareness of medicine outlets staff.