Alia Ibrahim, Mohamed Salem

The right to medicine is one of the most important components of the health care system in the world. The United Nations considers it an integral part of the right to health principle. In addition, medicine is essential for all human beings in all societies because of its direct relationship to the right to physical integrity and life.

The task of providing medicines at fair prices in Egypt was one of the main features of the state’s perception in the Nasserist era of social justice and self-sufficiency. Through the industrialization of the public sector, medicine in Egypt was subject to forced pricing. With the continuation of the economic transformation since the 1970s, a ministerial committee was adopted for the pricing of medicines, in addition to a profit margin for all parties to the process of manufacturing the drug.

In this context, this booklet is divided into two policy recommendations, the first paper making recommendations on the promotion of the right to medicine in Egypt, and the second paper recommendations towards fair policies for the pricing of medicine.

The main problem of the drug issue in Egypt is the absence of a drug policy. A pharmaceutical policy based on equitable distribution should be established, which deals with the basic rights of access to medicine and ensuring its continued availability.

There is an urgent need to reform the health sector, including the drug sector, through new drug policies, which encourage and adhere to quality standards in pharmaceutical manufacturing, fair distribution, efficiency, and access to medicine, and to suit the economic and social conditions of society within the new health insurance framework.

Re-establish new pricing policies that take into account socio-economic conditions, reorganize drug registration policies and systems, and enact special legislation on the list of essential medicines, guided by the list of essential medicines developed by the World Health Organization, which makes these medicines available to citizens at inexpensive prices under the new health insurance.

Full version of the paper is available at Dar Al Maraya for Cultural Production, 23 Abdel Khaliq Tharwat Street, Downtown, Cairo, and at Arab Forum for Alternatives office in Beirut, West house 3 Building, Jane Darc, Hamra St., Beirut, Lebanon. For an Arabic synopsis: afalebanon.org/?p=8098