World Health Organization member states agree on the importance of access to medicines to achieve universal health coverage, but at the recently concluded 142nd session of WHO’s executive board, it was clear they have different and strong opinions on how to make that happen.

The issue of timely access to quality, affordable health products — medicines, vaccines, diagnostic tools — has become a huge topic in global health in recent years, not only among developing countries but even among high income ones. The high cost of products such as cancer medicines, for example, have prompted calls from different quarters for transparency of research and development costs — particularly by pharmaceutical companies. One of the most expensive cancer drugs out in the market today to treat leukemia among children and young adults costs nearly $500,000 per patient.

But the issue has been of particular significance to developing nations, whose populations are not only struggling to keep up with costs of expensive drugs for noncommunicable diseases, but also for lifesaving ones such as pneumococcal vaccine, drugs for tuberculosis, and hepatitis C.

Read the full article about the clash within WHO over accessible medicine for all by Jenny Lei Ravelo at Devex International Development.