email article
The last decade saw middle-income countries enjoying improved access to cardiovascular medications, but they remain far from closing the considerable gap with richer countries.
Cardiovascular drug sales grew about 10 times faster from 2008 to 2018 in middle-income countries than in high-income countries (annual growth rate 9.96% vs 0.98%), according to a large pharmaceutical sales database probed by Esther Chan, PhD, of the University of Hong Kong, and colleagues.
As a result, the 15-fold gap in total cardiovascular medicine sales between the two country types in 2008 (27.69 vs 410.54 defined daily doses per 1,000 inhabitants per day) shrank to a six-fold gap in 2018 (71.57 vs 452.52 defined daily doses per 1,000 inhabitants per day), reported Chan's group in the February 23 issue of the