An epidemiological study of common drugs in the health supply chain

Purpose – The study aims to provide insights into the availability of common drugs with respect to disease load, regarding three common childhood diseases, acute respiratory infection (ARI), diarrhoea and malaria. The study flags an important issue regarding the level of expertise of the present system to address humanitarian logistics in case of emergency.Design/methodology/approach – A mixed‐method approach using both qualitative and quantitative study techniques was used to collect data. Hospital level data were collected from randomly selected primary health centers and community health centers. a cohort of three community health centers and nine primary health centers were selected for the study. The data collected were both on disease load and availability of drugs during the study period (2009‐2012), using a retrospective cohort. Expert interviews were conducted of practising medical practitioners on classification of drugs into Vital, Essential and Desirable categories.Findings – Results show that...