Frontiers for Young Minds: How Do We Make Sure Everybody in the World Has Access to Medicines?

Two billion people across the globe still lack access to medicines and vaccines. Thomas Collin-Lefebvre and Executive Director Jayasree K. Iyer explain the access-to-medicine issue to a younger audience in this piece for Frontiers for Young Minds, a journal bringing scientific news and information to children and teenagers. The aim of the piece is to engage young people in the issue of medicine access and demonstrate how your geographic location, cultural context, and income can impact your ability to get the treatment you need to maintain your health.

Date

25 March 2020

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Of all people living on the planet today, there are an estimated 2 billion who do not have access to essential medicines and vaccines. Most of them live in low- and middle-income countries. While scientific breakthroughs are leading to the development of new medicines to treat or cure many diseases, these fail to reach everyone who needs them. Even medicines that have been known for a long time are hard to get a hold of in certain parts of the world. This is called the access-to-medicine issue. In this article, Thomas and Jayasree explore four distinct approaches where pharmaceutical companies can improve their efforts on this issue, namely: availability, accessibility, affordability and acceptability.

Read the full article on Frontiers for Young Minds.