Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 9 No 8 p216
September 2002

News summary

WHO launches model medicines formulary

The World Health Organization has published the first edition of its model formulary. The formulary contains prescribing information on the 325 medicines contained in the WHO model list of essential medicines.

The new formulary is mainly intended to be used by governments and institutions as a basis for developing their own formularies. While the formulary may be particularly relevant for developing countries, where commercial materials are often the only available source of medicines information, WHO notes that bad prescribing practices are present in all countries.

The WHO model list of essential medicines was recently updated to include 12 antiretroviral medicines for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.

The editorial staff of the British National Formulary were responsible for final data validation, editing and layout of the formulary.

The formulary is available at www.who.int/medicines

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