Kenyan Government Promises to Provide Essential Medicines

On June 15, 2009, Kenya's Ministry of Health announced plans to strengthen the government's medical supply agency in order to effectively distribute essential medicines to all public health centers countrywide. The Kenyan government promised to introduce telemedicine, a technology that will enable doctors and nurses to handle medical emergencies at rural health facilities, as well as to develop policy and legislation on health financing.

This directive follows an intense media and advocacy campaign conducted by the OSI Public Health Program's Access to Essential Medicines Initiative in partnership with OSIEA and the Health Media Initiative. The three are working with a network of civil society groups to publicize the lack of essential medicines at public health institutions in East and Southern Africa.

Led by Health Africa International and the Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development, the network has rolled out a campaign dubbed Stop Stock-outs to push for bold and decisive measures to improve the availability of essential medicines for common diseases in seven countries. The campaign calls on governments to guarantee autonomy to national medical and procurement supply agencies, address corruption in the medicine supply chain to stop theft and diversion, and allocate adequate resources for essential medicines.

During the campaign's "pill check week" in June 2009, partners visited government health facilities and took inventory of 10 essential medicines to check what was available and what was "stocked out."