Medicine security/Outreach means that every clinic, health worker and patient – everyone – around the world has reliable, equitable access to the medicine and supplies they need to achieve good health…a goal worth striving for.

Imagine not having an antibiotic to treat your child’s pneumonia, or enough insulin for your own diabetes. A nightmare for some. A reality for nearly 2 billion people with no access to medicines, causing a cascade of misery and suffering.

How Do We Get There?
To achieve medicine security, communities need medicine accessibility, availability, affordability and acceptability. Communities without any one of these four components can be medicine insecure—but more commonly, these pieces intersect. And often, they’re underscored by individual poverty.

Even currently medicine secure communities may be at risk of becoming insecure. Emergencies can disrupt medicine security—damaging pharmacies, disrupting supply chains and forcing survivors to flee their homes without medications. And as cases of non-communicable disease trend upward around the world, the need for consistent access to medicine and medical supplies for disease management grows, too.