Abstract
In China, efforts to restrict excessive antibiotic consumption may prevent sufficient access to these life-saving drugs among the most deprived in society because of the weak primary health care system. This makes antibiotic stewardship in the retail pharmacy sector a particular challenge. We conducted an analysis to examinate policies on antibiotic sales in retail pharmacies in China and how tensions between ‘excess’ and ‘access’ are managed. The analysis was guided by the Walt and Gilson health policy analysis triangle to systematically analyse policies based on the content of policies, contexts, governance processes, and actors. Nine research studies and 25 documents identified from national and international sources were extracted, grouped into categories, and examined within and across records and categories. As of 2020, eight key policies have been introduced in China that focus on two areas: dispending prescribed medicines or antimicrobials with a prescription and having a licensed pharmacist present in the retail pharmacies, with approaches having changed over time. Inappropriate sales of antibiotics are still common in retail pharmacies, which can be linked to the lack of consistency and enforcement of published policies, the profit-driven nature of retail pharmacies, and the displacement of the demand for antibiotics from clinical into less regulated settings.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 141 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Antibiotics |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 21 Jan 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Prior to the economic reforms, most pharmaceutical enterprises were state-owned. The state government established a central department, the Pharmaceutical Administration (PA), in 1978 to directly control the entire pharmaceutical industry in China. However, the economic reforms encouraged private capital and competition, which tended to give decision making power to the managers of pharmaceutical enterprises while PA became a less powerful regulating authority. Furthermore, PA’s principal responsibility is to support pharmaceutical enterprise development; it was also allowed to participate in profit-making activities and received financial support from the regulated pharmaceutical enterprises [21]. This affected the PA motivation to regulate pharmaceutical activities and over time, pharmaceutical enterprises became independent business entities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.