Resolution WHA55.14. Ensuring accessibility of essential medicines

1. URGES Member States:

(1) to reaffirm their commitment to increasing access to medicines, and to translate such commitment into specific regulation within countries, especially enactment of national drug policies and establishment of lists of essential medicines based on evidence and with reference to WHO’s Model List, and into actions designed to promote policy for, access to, and quality and rational use of, medicines within national health systems;

(2) to establish the necessary mechanisms for essential medicines lists that are science-based, independent of external pressures, and subject to regular reviews;

(4) to reaffirm, within the national drug policies, WHO’s concept of essential medicines as those medicines that satisfy the priority health care needs of the population, reflecting also availability, quality, price and feasibility of delivery, and reemphasizing the evidence base for overall national discussions;

2. REQUESTS the Director-General:

(6) to pursue all diplomatic and political opportunities aimed at overcoming barriers to access to essential medicines, collaborating with Member States in order to make these medicines accessible and affordable to the people who need them;