1st Global Essential Medicines meeting: Researchers, clinicians, policy makers & WHO set agenda for health equity
On November 20-21, ICRH’s dr. Katrina Perehudoff attended the first Global Essential Medicines (GEM) meeting organised by Prof. Nav Persaud at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.
The purpose of the meeting was to support work towards the vision of promoting health globally by improving essential medicines lists, and the GEM mission (see the GEM interactive website with the essential medicines lists of 137 countries).This meeting convened representatives of national Essential Medicines List (EML) programs, the World Health Organization (WHO), academics and clinicians. Katrina and Prof. Jillian Kohler, Director of WHO Collaborating Centre on Governance,Transparency & Accountability in the Pharmaceutical Sector, spoke on the panel “Rights, legal considerations and public allocative decisions” to tease out the legal and governance aspects of deciding who gets which medicine and at what price. This highly interactive meeting identified four priority areas for future work on global essential medicines.
Building on those priority areas, Dr. Katrina Perehudoff, Prof. Olivier Degomme, and Prof. Nav Persaud (University of Toronto) will advance this work in the context of the Strategic Institutional Partnership between the University of Toronto and Ghent University. In 2020, their joint project will investigate the accessibility and availability of essential medicines for sexual and reproductive health. For more information or to get involved, please contact Katrina (katrina.perehudoff@ugent.be)
