This post was originally published on the SIAPS website on January 30, 2017. The Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) program is funded by USAID and implemented by MSH. This project works to assure the availability of quality pharmaceutical products and effective pharmaceutical services.
Over the past two decades, Ethiopia has improved its delivery of primary health care services and begun to make great progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals, particularly with regard to maternal, newborn, and child health and the prevention and control of HIV and tuberculosis. Yet pharmaceutical services—a patient's last point of care and one of the country's single largest health care expenses—remain inadequate. While some medicines in stock expire, other needed medicines are frequently unavailable, and patients are dissatisfied with the poor quality of service they receive.