An insight into the pharmaceutical sector in Yemen during conflict: challenges and recommendations

ABSTRACT

In our world today, we need to understand, measure, and respond to inequality. The conflict and siege in Yemen have caused serious repercussions and consequences for the pharmaceutical sector and health of the people. Hospital, health centres and facilities, medicines warehouses and pharmaceutical factories have been destroyed. Further, the conflict has aggravated the health situation with shortages of medicines, an increase in chronic illnesses, and multiple epidemics and casualties. This article aims to highlight the challenges faced by the pharmaceutical sector in Yemen. It will address the overall state of health of the Yemeni people, as well as focus on the past, current status and future development of the pharmaceutical sector. Further, it will focus on possible remedial actions to solve some of these problems. These problems can be tackled if the responsible parties have the political will to do so. Acknowledging the different classes of problems is undeniably very important to provide clarity on the future of Yemen’s supposedly promising pharmaceutical landscape.

KEYWORDS:

• Pharmaceutical sector
• pharmaceutical landscape
• health system
• conflict
• war
• Yemen

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Editor, Marion Birch for editing the manuscript and further enhancing the quality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohammed Alshakka

Mohammed Alshakka received the Master degree in pharmacy from Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald in Germany. He spent around 20 years working in Aden as Head of the National Dispensing Chemist in Aden (1987-1989), Head of Drug Information Department/MOPH Aden (1990-1997) and Lecturer at Aden University-Pharmacy Faculty (1997-2008).  He completed his PhD in Parmacoepidemiology from  Universiti Sains Malaysia 2013. Later he joined Aden University as Assistant Professor then Associate Professor in Faculty of Pharmacy.  He appointed as a Director of the Yemeni Pharmacovigilance Center in 2014-2017.  He has written extensively many academic publications in English and Arabic. His academic publication include conference abstracts, full paper, review articles and book.

Mohamed Izham Mohamed Ibrahim

Mohamed Izham is a Professor of Social and Administrative Pharmacy at College of Pharmacy, Qatar University. His areas of research, graduate supervision, publication and consultancy are in the area of Social & Administrative Pharmacy that focus on Pharmaceutical Policy & Supply Management, Pharmacoeconomics, Pharmacoepidemiology, Socio-behavioral Aspects of Pharmacy, and Pharmaceutical Management & Marketing.

Awsan Bahattab

Awsan Bahattab is medical doctor specialized in international health. Since 2012, she has taught several public health courses for medical and health students at the University of Aden. She also worked as a consultant for several NGOs in Yemen. She has research experience in community and health service research. Currently, she is a PhD candidate, at CRIMIDIM - Università Degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”, Italy.

Wafa F.S. Badulla

Wafa F.S. Badulla has completed her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Anadolu University, Institute of Health Science. She has been working at Aden University since 2002. She is now an Assistant Professor in Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department, Aden University.  Her research areas are in pharmaceutical analysis and clinical pharmacy.  She is a peer reviewer for the Global Journal of Science Frontier Research and Editorial Broad Member in SCIREA Journal of Chemistry.

P Ravi Shankar

Pathiyil Ravi Shankar is a clinical pharmacologist, medical educator and a research adviser at the Oceania University of Medicine, Apia, Samoa. Previously, he was associated with KIST Medical College, Lalitpur and Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Pokhara, Nepal. He was a faculty member at medical schools in Aruba and Saint Lucia in the Caribbean. His areas of research interest are health humanities, rational use of medicines, small group learning, self-directed learning and pharmacovigilance among others. Dr Shankar has around 680 publications in various journals and an h-index of 35. He is an honorary visiting professor at Saveetha University, India and an external thesis examiner at the Universiti Sains Malaysia.