Assessing the magnitude and nature of shortages of essential medicines and vaccines: focus on the WHO European Region (2020)

Access to affordable quality-assured essential medicines and vaccines has been recognized as a crucial element of the solutions to numerous important public health problems in World Health Assembly resolutions. It also represents one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals and is essential to achieving universal health coverage. Unfortunately, availability is not always guaranteed, and more and more countries are facing shortages of essential medicines and vaccines. This report was commissioned to support WHO’s work implementing the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly resolution WHA69.25 of 2016 on addressing the global shortage of medicines and vaccines. In order to gain a better, more comprehensive understanding of the national mechanisms in place and of strategies used by countries to mitigate the risk of shortages, WHO developed a survey to assess the extent and impact of shortages across countries and sent it to all Member States in the WHO European Region in 2018. The global survey was distributed in May 2018 through WHO country offices for the attention of national authorities with responsibility for monitoring shortages of medicines and vaccines. Of the 53 countries in the WHO European Region, 38 responded to the survey. Countries faced a variety of challenges in providing updates on shortages, include insufficient information to identify the product, and indications of when a shortage started and the time frame. Information is gathered in some but not all countries in the WHO European Region, highlighting the need to understand and address specific bottlenecks based on individual country situations. This report summarizes the main findings and considerations arising from the responses.