SynthesisBMC public health2023
Global, regional and national availability of essential medicines for children, 2009-2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in BMC public health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Access to essential medicines in aspirational districts of India; A multi-site cross sectional study.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2025Article
- Poor-tasting pediatric medicines: part 2. Exploring caregiver and healthcare provider values and preferences for a novel taste-blocker product to improve acceptability.Frontiers in drug delivery · 2025Article
- National availability, prices and affordability of essential medicines: a comprehensive analysis using WHO/HAI methodology in Chad.The Pan African medical journal · 2025Article
- The availability of essential medicines in primary health centres in Indonesia: achievements and challenges across the archipelago.The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAccess to essential medicines is a vital component of universal health coverage. The low availability of essential medicines for children (EMC) has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to issue a number of resolutions calling on member states on its improvement. But its global progress has been unclear. We aimed to systematically evaluate the progress of availability of EMC over the past decade across economic regions and countries.
methodsWe searched eight databases from inception to December 2021 and reference lists to identify included studies. Two reviewers independently conducted literature screening, data extraction and quality evaluation. This study was registered with PROSPERO, CRD42022314003.
resultsOverall, 22 cross-sectional studies covering 17 countries, 4 income groups were included. Globally, the average availability rates of EMC were 39.0% (95%CI: 35.5-42.5%) in 2009-2015 and 43.1% (95%CI: 40.1-46.2%) in 2016-2020. Based on the World Bank classification of economic regions, income was not proportional to availability. Nationally, the availability rate of EMC was reasonable and high (> 50%) in only 4 countries, and low or very low for the rest 13 countries. The availability rates of EMC in primary healthcare centers had increased, while that for other levels of hospitals slightly declined. The availability of original medicines decreased while that of generic medicines was stable. All drug categories had not achieved the high availability rate.
conclusionThe availability rate of EMC was low globally, with slight increase in the last decade. Continuous monitoring and timely reporting of the availability of EMC are also needed to facilitate targets setting and inform relevant policy making.
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