Access to quality healthcare services is recognized as a human right. Patients in a majority of the low and middle income countries (LMICs), however, face enormous challenges accessing safe, quality and essential medicines. Past efforts to improve access to quality medicines have focused primarily on regulation and policy with the aim of strengthening healthcare systems and improving the supply chain for essential medicines. Technological innovations, including those in the field of applied chemistry, can contribute to the expansion of access to quality medicines. The concept of transforming chemistry knowledge and bringing chemical analysis out of the laboratory settings and into the real world will require a deep understanding of the supply system in which these technologies aim to address. Barriers to accessing quality medications in LMICs can be broadly categorized as issues with the 3As, that is, availability, accountability and adherence. Inadequate financing for health and complex supply chain management contribute to low levels of availability of medications within healthcare facilities. Inadequacies in accountability results in the trade in falsified and substandard medications which has public health, economic and social consequences. Lastly, low levels of health literacy and disease stigma lead to poor patient medication adherence. Based on our experiences in western Kenya, we propose solutions that target the 3A barriers; revolving fund pharmacies to address availability, low cost test cards to improve accountability by assessing the quality of medications within the supply chain and peer based care programs to improve adherence. We propose that chemists should apply and focus their efforts to create transformative chemical techniques with the potential to significantly improve the quality of medicines, to improve patient outcomes, and to alter the delivery of care to patients.

Addressing the 3A’s (availability, accountability, adherence) of supply chain systems in western Kenya

255th National Meeting (2018)

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