This Pharmaceutical Country Profile provides data on structures, processes and
outcomes of the pharmaceutical sector of Sudan. The aim is to put together
existing information and to make all relevant information on the
pharmaceuticals sector available to the public in a user-friendly format. In
2010, country profiles similar to this one have been developed for 13 pilot
countries. During 2011, the World Health Organization plans to support all WHO
Member States to develop similar country profiles.
The information is categorized in 8 sections, namely: (1) Health and
Demographic data, (2) Health Services, (3) Policy Issues, (4) Regulation, (5)
Medicines Financing, (6) Supply of Pharmaceuticals, (7) Rational Use of
Medicines, and (8) Household Surveys. The indicators have been divided into
two categories, namely "core" (most important) and "supplementary" (useful if
available). The narrative profile is based only on the core indicators; while the
tables in the annexes present all indicators. For each piece of information, we
have tried to indicate the year and source of the data; these are used to build
the references in the profile and are also indicated in the tables. If key
national documents are available on-line, links are provided to the source
documents so that the user can easily access these documents.
The selection of indicators for the profiles has involved all technical units
working in the Essential Medicines Department of the World Health
Organization as well as experts from WHO Regional and Country Offices,
Harvard Medical School, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (known as Fiocruz),
University of Utrecht, the Austrian Federal Institute for Health Care, and
representatives from the 13 pilot countries. Data collection in the pilot
countries was conducted using a user-friendly electronic questionnaire that
included a comprehensive glossary. Countries were requested not to conduct 2
any additional surveys, but only to enter the results from previous surveys and
to provide information available at the central level. To facilitate the work of
national counterparts, the questionnaires were pre-filled using all data
available at WHO HQ before being sent out to countries. A coordinator was
nominated for each of the 13 pilot countries. The coordinator for Sudan was
Mrs Nahid Idris Salih Khalid.
The completed questionnaires were then used to produce the country profiles.
In order to do this in a structured and efficient manner, a text template was
developed. Member states took part in the development of the profile and,
once the final product was ready, an officer from the Ministry of Health
certified the quality of the information and gave formal permission to publish
the profile on the web site of WHO.