ABSTRACT
Access to reliable, affordable, and quality-assured medicines remains a huge challenge for the East African Community (EAC) countries. This chapter provides crucial contextual background information to evaluate the potential for a regional collective approach to address this issue. By mapping out the epidemiology and healthcare systems of each EAC country, the chapter demonstrates the complexities of ensuring pharmaceutical access and highlights the socio-economic, industrial, and epidemiological factors that contribute to the challenge. Moreover, with the rising burden of non-communicable diseases and a young, growing population, the region faces an uphill battle to provide preventive and long-term care, including access to medicines. National-level attempts to tackle these challenges have fallen short, underscoring the need for a collective, regional approach. Therefore, this chapter proposes various possibilities for utilising a regional cooperative approach to overcome the identified constraints. Overall, the chapter sets the stage for the subsequent exploration of specific strategies and policies to achieve the goal of pharmaceutical access for the EAC population.
