In the surveyed public health facilities, 75% of the key drugs were available but with a high stock-out duration of 3 months.

The availability of essential drugs, especially at the health centre level where the majority of people seek healthcare services and equate the quality of healthcare primarily with the availability of basic essential drugs, should be a cause of concern and the Ministry of Health should implement corrective strategies and measures to improve the availability of essential drugs.

On a positive note, the survey found that more than half (56%) of the facilities had adequate or more than adequate storage facilities for drugs. The presence of expired drugs both in the public and private sectors was minimal though existing mechanisms should be strengthened and enforced to ensure that there are no expired drugs on the shelves as they can mistakenly be dispensed to patients.

There was unacceptably high use of antibiotics and injections (63.2% and 23.1% respectively) and unless prompt measures are taken to improve the prescribing habits and the use of these types of drugs, there is little doubt that Uganda will face serious problems of increasing resistance to currently cost-effective antibiotics and increased costs and risk to the patient from the overuse of injections.

To correct this situation the Ministry of Health should support the establishment of district drug and therapeutic committees to coordinate monitoring of adherence to recommended treatment protocols.

The survey also looked at patient knowledge on taking their medicines and found that 3 out of 4 patients did not know how to take their medicines. Unless urgent and effective measures are taken to improve this situation, the gains made in improving the availability of essential drugs could be lost through widespread inappropriate use of dispensed medicines and failure to achieve the expected treatment outcomes.

Indicator-based surveys are cost-effective tools that measure complex systems in a relatively short time and give a snapshot of an overall trend in the sector.

Other studies and data, specifically targeting the role and performance of the private sector, are needed to get an overall and complete picture of the situation in the pharmaceutical sector. This factor should be taken into consideration in interpreting the results of this survey.