Indias latest essential medicines list: gaps, strengths and opportunities in evidence-based decision-making

Essential medicines—defined by the WHO as ‘those that satisfy the priority health care needs of the population’—are meant to be always accessible within health systems, in sufficient quantities, in optimal dosage forms, of guaranteed quality and at affordable costs.1 The WHO Model Essential Medicines List (EML)1 serves as a reference for countries to design and update national EMLs to support medicine procurement, supply, manufacture, pricing and prescribing practices. In this commentary, we discuss the gaps, strengths and opportunities in evidence-based decision-making in India’s latest national EML, highlighting potential lessons for the future and for other countries. India’s first National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) was released in 1996, following which it has been revised four times: in 2003, 2011, 2015 and most recently in 2022,2 after a gap of 7 years. Within this gap between NLEM-2015 and NLEM-2022, the WHO revised its EML three...
Source: Evidence-Based Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: EBM opinion and debate Source Type: research