Are we moving towards a new definition of essential medicines?

The problems of health care in 1977 when the definition of an essential medicine was written were different than those of 2015. Then the focus was on helping developing countries improve the inadequate health care available for many people in these countries.[2] Infectious disease was upmost in people’s minds. Thirty‑nine anti‑infective drugs were in the main list then, along with seven antineoplastic drugs. Around 1990, some middle‑income countries desired advice about cancer medicines. A World Health Organization (WHO) consultation was held and divided cancer medicines into three categories: Drugs that significantly prolonged survival, those that improved quality of life, and those that did neither.[3] An expert committee decided that those in the first two categories were essential. It appears that this determination that drugs in these two categories are essential continues to the present.