Medicine donations: a review of policies and practices

To help promote the effective delivery of drug donations, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Guidelines for Medicine Donations. The need for revisions is timely given the large-scale influx of medicine donations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study analyses current policies of donors and recipients that are commensurate with the recommendations in the Guidelines and examines current practices, challenges, and revision suggestions.

A search for medicine donation policies of donors and recipients was conducted in May/June 2022 and repeated in January 2023. Potential donor countries were identified from the high-income countries on the United Nation's (UN) List of G20 Countries. Potential pharmaceutical company donors were selected from those with 2021 revenue of $30 billion or greater. Potential non-government organization donors came from the WHO list of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and two other sources. Potential recipient countries were those on the UN List of Least Developed Countries. These four lists were supplemented with actual donors and recipients identified from the literature. All policies retrieved were screened to identify which of the 12 recommendations from the WHO Guidelines were incorporated. We identified 38 policies from 1 donor country, 6 brand-name multinational pharmaceutical companies, 6 NGOs and 25 recipient countries. Most policies incorporated all 12 recommendations. Twenty-five of the 38 policies were developed in 2010 or later. The majority of actual donors and recipients did not have policies that were publicly available. A rapid literature review for publications from 2010 onwards identified challenges in implementing the WHO Guidelines and suggested for revisions. Challenges included: (1) information management; (2) medication presentation; (3) influence from the pharmaceutical industry; (4) donation sustainability; and (5) the belief that donations are inherently good.

Our findings suggest that both donors and recipients could further align their policies with the existing Guidelines and both groups should be consulted on any revisions to ensure that their experiences are reflected and their needs are addressed. While the current WHO Guidelines for Medicine Donations are a solid base for medical humanitarian efforts, evidence points to the need for an update to meet current challenges.