Overall goal
The National Drug Policy (NDP) aims to contribute to the attainment of a good standard of health by the population of Uganda, through ensuring the availability, accessibility and affordability at all times of essential drugs of appropriate quality, safety and efficacy, and by promoting their rational use.
Main objectives
1. Access: to make essential drugs accessible to all those who need them by ensuring that they are affordable and always available in all parts of the country.
2. Quality: to ensure that all drugs available to the public are of appropriate quality, safety, and efficacy.
3. Rational Drug Use: to actively and continuously promote the rational use of drugs and to provide objective, relevant and practical information to health workers, patients and the general public.
4. To institute and sustain suitable drug financing mechanisms which will ensure the continuous availability of adequate quantities of the required essential drugs.
5. To ensure the availability of sufficient suitably trained pharmaceutical and other relevant staff to enable effective implementation of NDP.
6. To optimize use of available resources, knowledge and expertise in implementation of NDP through the establishment of an active partnership between the community, government bodies and private providers (profit and non-profit) involved in the pharmaceutical sector and through cooperation with regional and international agencies.
Note: the terms ‘drug’ and ‘medicine’ are used synonymously throughout the document and, unless otherwise specified, apply to human, veterinary and commercial traditional medicines.
Policy Areas of the NDP
1. Pharmaceutical legislation and regulation
2. Drug selection
3. Drug supply:
3.1 Quantification
3.2 Procurement (including donations)
3.3 Storage and inventory control
3.4 Distribution
3.5 Local production
3.6 Quality assurance
3.7 Disposal of expired or otherwise unwanted drugs and medical supplies
4. Rational drug use and drug information:
4.1 Prescribing
4.2 Dispensing
4.3 Patient use
4.4 Drug information
5. Drug financing and pricing
5.1 Drug financing
5.2 Drug pricing
6. Traditional medicines
7. Human resource development
8. Research and development
9. Technical co-operation
10. Monitoring and evaluation
