Access to Medical Products in the WHO South-East Asia Region 2025 is a biennial publication documenting progress and challenges in ensuring equitable access… The Guidelines includes information on the ATC Classification system and general principles of DDDs assignment. Information necessary for allocating ATC codes and DDDs at a national or local level can be found in the Guidelines. DDDs sometimes need to be reviewed because dosages may change over time, e.g. due to the introduction of new main indications or new research making it necessary to change the DDD.
Guidelines for the psychosocially assisted pharmacological treatment of opioid dependence
- “Antimicrobial resistance is only getting worse yet we’re not developing new trailblazing products fast enough to combat the most dangerous and deadly bacteria,” said Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance ad interim.
- Access to Medical Products in the WHO South-East Asia Region 2025 is a biennial publication documenting progress and challenges in ensuring equitable access…
- The 2nd, 3rd and 4th levels are often used to identify pharmacological subgroups when that is considered more appropriate than therapeutic or chemical subgroups.
- This report presents the first World Health Organization (WHO) analysis of antifungal agents in clinical and preclinical development.
In the guidelines, WHO recommends the use of a range of treatment options for opioid dependence. These include opioid agonist maintenance treatment (or OAMT) with medicines such as methadone and buprenorphine, pharmacological treatment with opioid antagonists (such as naltrexone) as well as psychosocial support. In the choice of treatment, WHO recommends OAMT to be used for most patients as the intervention with strongest evidence of effectiveness for variety of outcomes. These include reduction in non-medical opioid use, mortality and morbidity (including due to opioid overdose, HIV and viral hepatitis), lowering risk of crime and incarceration, better retention in treatment, quality of life and overall wellbeing. In the guidelines on community management of opioid overdose, WHO recommends that people who are likely to witness an opioid overdose, including people who use opioids, and their family and friends should be given access to naloxone and training in its use so that they can respond to opioid overdose in an emergency.
Public expenditure ranges widely between nations, from under 20% of totalhealthcare costs in high-income countries to up to 66% in low-income countries. Equal access and the reliable supply of medicines is anongoing goal of WHO and global health delivery systems, the achievement ofwhich is hampered by several factors. The first is regulatory issues, which canaffect how medicines are bought to market, create lag times and cause thesupply of medicines in some areas of the globe to be delayed long after theyare available elsewhere.
Prescribed Daily Dose (PDD)
The Global status report on alcohol and health and treatment of substance use disorders presents a comprehensive overview of alcohol consumption, alcohol-related… Access to medicines is essential for attainment of universal health coverage, which is central to achievement of the health-related Sustainable Development… Encouragingly, non-traditional biological agents, such as bacteriophages, antibodies, anti-virulence agents, immune-modulating agents and microbiome-modulating agents, are increasingly being explored as complements and alternatives to antibiotics.
ATC 3rd& 4th levels
- Encouragingly, non-traditional biological agents, such as bacteriophages, antibodies, anti-virulence agents, immune-modulating agents and microbiome-modulating agents, are increasingly being explored as complements and alternatives to antibiotics.
- Working to increase access to essentialpharmaceuticals while limiting the spread of falsified products is at the heart of WHO’s global strategy on medicines.
- Access to appropriate medications is shown to have substantial impacts on community health and the related economic indicators.
AMR is driven largely by the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials, yet, at the same time, many people around the world do not have access to essential antimicrobial medicines. The BPPL 2024 saw the removal of five pathogen-antibiotic combinations that were included in BPPL 2017, and the addition of four new combinations. The fact that third-generation cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacterales are listed as a standalone item within the critical priority category emphasizes their burden and need for targeted interventions, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Poster: We urgently need more effective medicines
The 2nd, 3rd and 4th levels are often used to identify pharmacological subgroups when that is considered more appropriate than therapeutic or chemical subgroups. This second review of the world medicines situation (first published in 1988 as The WorldDrug Situation) presents the available evidence on global production,… This document summarizes the proceedings and outcomes of a technical consultation designed to develop target product profiles for six priority childhood…
Building on the value of the BPPL as a global tool, tailoring the list to country and regional contexts can account for regional variations in pathogen distribution and the AMR burden. For example, antibiotic-resistant Mycoplasma genitalium, which is not included in the list, is an increasing concern in some parts of the world. Medicinal substances are classified according to their main therapeutic use on the basic principle of only one ATC code for each medicinal product (as defined by route of administration and in some cases strength).
Gram-negative bacteria have built-in abilities to find new ways to resist treatment and can pass along genetic material that allows other bacteria to become drug-resistant as well. Access to appropriate medications is shown to have substantial impacts on community health and the related economic indicators. Quality-assured, safe and effective drug metabolism overview medicines, vaccines and medicaldevices are fundamental to a functioning health system. However, globalized trade can undermine regulation, and in resource-limited settings especially, incidence of substandard or falsified medicines is growing. Working to increase access to essentialpharmaceuticals while limiting the spread of falsified products is at the heart of WHO’s global strategy on medicines. Launched in 1987, WHO Drug Information communicates the latest international news and trends to regulatory agencies, academic and training institutions, researchers, consumer bodies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers and focuses on topics impacting the safety, efficacy and quality of medicines, medical products, herbals and biomedicines.
Since 1977, WHO has maintained a list of essentialmedicines as a means to promote health equity around the world. This list beganwith 208 identified medicines and has grown to include 460 differentpharmaceuticals. Although it was not designed as a global standard, the listnow acts as a guide for the procurement and supply of medicines at the nationaland local level. WHO Drug Information is a quarterly journal providing an overview of topics relating to medicines development and regulation which is targeted to a wide audience of health professionals and policy makers. In addition, 3 non-traditional agents have been authorized, all are faecal-based products for restoring the gut microbiota, to prevent recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) following antibiotic treatment in adults.
Medium priority pathogens include Group A and B Streptococci (both new to the 2024 list), Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Haemophilus influenzae, which present a high disease burden. These pathogens require increased attention, especially in vulnerable populations including paediatric and elderly populations, particularly in resource-limited settings. In many ATC main groups, pharmacological groups have been assigned on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th levels allowing drugs with several therapeutic uses to be included, without specifying the main indication. For example, calcium channel blockers are classified in the pharmacological group C08 (see classification of verapamil below), which avoids specifying whether the main indication is coronary heart disease or hypertension. Millennium Development Goal 8E aims for affordable access to essential medicines.Essential medicines, as defined by WHO, are those that “satisfy… WHO drug information provides an overview of topics of current relevance relating to drug development and regulation.
Only 50% countries
High priority pathogens, such as Salmonella and Shigella, are of particularly high burden in low- and middle-income countries, along with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, which pose significant challenges in healthcare settings. AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to medicines, making people sicker and increasing the risk of disease spread, illness and deaths. The updated BPPL incorporates new evidence and expert insights to guide research and development (R&D) for new antibiotics and promote international coordination to foster innovation.
Other high priority pathogens, such as antibiotic-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Enterococcus faecium, present unique public health challenges, including persistent infections and resistance to multiple antibiotics, necessitating targeted research and public health interventions. Not only are there too few antibacterials in the pipeline, given how long is needed for R&D and the likelihood of failure, there is also not enough innovation. Of the 32 antibiotics under development to address BPPL infections, only 12 can be considered innovative. Furthermore, just 4 of these 12 are active against at least 1 WHO ‘critical’ pathogen – critical being the BPPL’s top risk category, over ‘high’ and ‘medium’ priority.
WHO releases report on state of development of antibacterials
Such drugs are usually only given one code and this may be a problem for users in countries where other uses are predominant. For example, low strength finasteride tablets used for treatment of baldness are classified under D11AX Other dermatologicals and the high strength tablets used for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are classified under G04C Drugs used in BPH. The price of medicine remains the largest impediment toaccess and the economic impact of pharmaceuticals is substantial. They are thelargest public expenditure on health after personal costs in many low-incomecountries, and the expense is a major cause of household impoverishment anddebt.
Further efforts are needed to facilitate clinical studies and assessments of these products, to help determine when and how to use these agents clinically. The ATC/DDD guidelines and the Index were both published for the first time in the current format in 1990. “Antimicrobial resistance jeopardizes our ability to effectively treat high burden infections, such as tuberculosis, leading to severe illness and increased mortality rates,» said Dr Jérôme Salomon, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage, Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases. Thus, in the ATC system all plain metformin preparations are given the code A10BA02.For the chemical substance, the International Nonproprietary Name (INN) is preferred. If INN names are not assigned, USAN (United States Adopted Name) or BAN (British Approved Name) names are usually chosen.The coding is important for obtaining accurate information in epidemiological studies. The five different levels allow comparisons to be made at various levels according to the purpose of the study.
Latest lists of proposed and recommended International Nonproprietary Names for Pharmaceutical Substances (INN) are also included. Looking at newly approved antibacterials, since 1 July 2017, 13 new antibiotics have obtained marketing authorization but only 2 represent a new chemical class and can be termed innovative, underscoring the scientific and technical challenge in discovering novel antibacterials that are both effective against bacteria and safe for humans. “Antimicrobial resistance is only getting worse yet we’re not developing new trailblazing products fast enough to combat the most dangerous and deadly bacteria,” said Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance ad interim.
