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Increasing access to medicines 153WHO guideline as their approach to healthcare, making itall but impossible to obtain the most appropriate drugs.This approach is irrational, and is not good for publichealth.The African healthcare crisis extends beyond the highlypublicised problems of HIV/AIDS and malaria. Although theinternational community has paid little attention,hypertension and diabetes are also widespread in Africa,and the combined number of deaths from those twodiseases nearly equals the toll from HIV/AIDS.When it comes to treating those diseases, however,Africans have limited options. Even those who can afforddrugs that are not on the EML do not have the opportunityto do so. That is because most African governments allowthe importation of only those drugs that are on the list.When it comes to drugs for hypertension, for example, thereare only six drugs on the WHO list. If one of those six listeddrugs cannot control an African’s hypertension, he or shewill die because no other hypertension drugs are registeredfor sale in that country.The disease burden in lower-income countries is comingincreasingly to resemble that of higher income countries,especially in terms of cardiovascular diseases and cancers.Plenty of new drugs are coming on stream to combat thesediseases, but the rationale behind the EML denies patients inpoorer countries access to these new drugs. This is becausethe EML deliberately favours listing generic medicines overpatented ones. In this way, the treatments available topatients in poorer countries do not match the contours ofthe disease burden. This also discourages innovation, as theEML sends confusing and inaccurate signals with regard towhich diseases are most prevalent at the local level.Tensions are mounting. In Kenya, a dispute has brokenout between those who import essential medicines and