Government launches national list of essential medicines

Tags: National National News

The Health Ministry has released a new National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), in which 384 medicines have been included.

IMPORTANT FACTS -

• In the list of 384 medicines, 34 new medicines have been included in the list of essential medicines.

• The NLEM 2022 contains 384 medicines as compared to 376 in NLEM, 2015. 

• The drugs are now classified into 27 therapeutic categories.

What is National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) ?

• Essential medicines are those that meet the primary health care needs on the basis of efficacy, safety, quality and total cost of treatment.

• The primary objective of NLEM is to promote rational use of drugs considering three important aspects viz., cost, safety and efficacy.

• It is based on the concept that a limited list of carefully selected drugs will improve the quality of health care, provide cost-effective health care and better manage medicines.