Equitable Access to Medicines, Vaccines, and Medical Devices

This chapter provides an overview over the main initiatives to improve equitable access to health technologies in low- and middle-income countries. Improvements to access to medicines were made through medicine selection and better supply management, price reductions through generic competition, and not-for-profit development of medicines for neglected diseases. Vaccination coverage was successfully increased through international efforts, initially for basic vaccines and over the last two decades also for newer vaccines. Diagnostics remains the weakest link with insufficient laboratory infrastructure and tests missing for many diseases. High prices of new health technologies and lack of innovation for non-profitable diseases remain general challenges. New ways to coordinate and finance innovation have been developed and need more political support. Unfortunately, access lessons from previous decades were ignored during the Covid-19 pandemic, with sobering results. Pandemic preparedness therefore needs to include guarantees for the equitable sharing of health technologies.