When you look at the trend of development especially in the health sector, it’s true that the Rwandan government has made great strides to implement and improve primary health care services.

Availability of quality medications plays an important role in determining the quality and accessibility of health care. 

Some years back, a central purchasing agency of CAMERWA was created to ensure regular supply of quality and low-price drugs in the country.

This government body has contributed to the reduction in retail price of drugs as well as reduction of stock out rates in health facilities. 

However, the problem of accessing essential drugs remains acute due to the low purchasing power of the population. 

Some drugs have often been found to be out of store and yet the demand is high. It becomes very expensive for a client to order medication from outside the country with the use of our local insurance scheme. 

The fact that Rwanda health insurance scheme does not work across borders makes it hard for people to access medications that are out of stock. 

There should be close cooperation between physicians and pharmacists in the country to meet variant needs of patients. 

Most of our pharmacies have been stocked with drugs used to treat tropical diseases or common illnesses but rise of various chronic illnesses and malformations calls for improved medical stores.

Previously majority of local pharmaceutical firms in the country have embarked on production of medications used to treat tropical diseases because it has been the most prevalent illnesses. 

Since most tropical illnesses have been well-controlled, we need to strike a balance and think of a new modification. 

People need accessible medications for prevalent chronic diseases like hypertension, coronary heart diseases, and diabetes among others. 

These medications are usually imported from developed countries with modern pharmaceutical firms.

One of the ways to improve health care services is the availability of quality drugs and particularly essential drugs. In order to achieve these goals, there is need to purchase generic and essential drugs.

Availability of drugs, vaccines in accessible and affordable manner is key to improvement of health care services because it will ease access of quality medications to the majority of the population. 

Many non-profit associations should be allowed to support the provision of drugs in the public.

It is also important to apprehend the availability of rising pharmaceutical enterprises that have been supported by the government. 

An example of such essential pharmaceutical firms is LABOPHAR (Pharmaceutical laboratory of Rwanda) that manufacture essential drugs at affordable prices. 

For example LABOPHAR has been able to manufacture large quantities of normal saline solution to the capacity of regional needs. They have been able to export their medications even to nearby countries. A variety of antibiotic drugs and others to mention but a few are also manufactured.

LABOPHAR is a drug manufacturing firm based in Huye district that supplies its drug products to nearly all hospitals in the country with their closest clients being the University Teaching Hospital of Butare (CHUB) and other health centers in the country as well. 

In Rwanda, there are very few organisations that work like LABOPHAR and this is because drug manufacturing firms require a lot of expertise and raw materials that is very expensive to get.

This has also contributed to the high cost of drugs being sold in pharmacies and clinical centers in the country.

To set up advanced pharmaceutical firms, the country should have good promotion of science and technology in medical sciences as well as modern policy of scientific learning, research and discovery.

Lack of enough expertise in medical sciences is still a problem to many African countries.

I think our pharmaceutical firms can grow rapidly because many raw materials are imported from Africa by western pharmaceutical firms.

Many important raw materials are found in most of the African deserts and bush lands.

Due to lack of enough information on their usage and awareness to put these raw materials into use, some of these plants have been wasted or eaten by animals. 

Dr Joseph Kamugisha is a resident oncologist at Jerusalem Hospital, Israel