Pharmacoeconomics in Africa: needs, prospect and challenges
Abstract
Africa as a continent has experienced a continuous increase in the cost of healthcare as its demands increase. With
many of these African countries living below the poverty threshold, Africans continue to die from preventable and
curable diseases. Population increases have led to an increase in demands for healthcare, which unfortunately have
been met with inequitable distribution of drugs. Hence, the outcomes from healthcare interventions are frequently
not maximized. These problems notably call for some economic principles and policies to guide medication selec‑
tion, procurement, or donation for population prioritization or health insurance. Pharmacoeconomics drives efcient
use of scarce or limited resources to maximize healthcare benefts and reduce costs. It also brings to play tools that
rate therapy choice based on the quality of life added to the patient after a choice of intervention was made over an
alternative. In this paper, we commented on the needs, prospect, and challenges of pharmacoeconomics in Africa