Chapter 14 in ‘Measuring Medicine Prices, Availability, Affordability and Price Components’

Developed by: Health Action International (HAI)  

Objective: To inform consumers and purchasers about current prices of specific medicines and to inform policy-makers, managers of health systems and the public about price changes and trends over time.

Output: Data on medicine prices and availability at a certain point in time.

Additional information: Currently, there is no universally agreed methodology for routine monitoring of medicine prices and availability, and debate continues on how biases and errors can be avoided by different methods.

Process and resources: As part of the WHO/HAI Project on Medicine Prices and Availability, on-line support is offered by project personnel to survey managers undertaking a medicine price and availability survey using the WHO/ HAI methodology. A data collector with good knowledge of the pharmaceutical sector and supply chain is required.

Link to the tool: http://www.haiweb.org/medicineprices/manual/mp2008/NPrices_14.pdf

Country experience: Pilot testing of the proposed methodology was attempted in three countries: Kenya, Malaysia and Pakistan. However, each country required that the methodology be significantly customised to the country context. Please see http://www.haiweb.org/medicineprices/manual/mp2008/NPrices_14.pdf.