FRONTESPIZIO - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

6. Using indicators to measure the pharmaceutical sector in Ethiopia 103commonly assessed by checking whether the chosen tracer diseases had beentreated according to the treatment schedules recommended in the STGs.For this purpose, three disease conditions, namely, diarrhoeal disease in children(watery, non-bloody), non-pneumonia Acute Respiratory TractInfection (ARTI) and mild/moderate pneumonia have been chosen. The recommendedtreatments are: ORS for watery, non-bloody diarrhea; non - use ofantibiotic for non-pneumonia ARTI and use of any of the first line antibiotics forMild/Moderate pneumonia (Procaine Penicillin, Amoxicillin or Cotrimoxazole).The national average for percentage of ORS use is 81.9% and it is close tothe ideal value of 100%.The national average for percentage of antibiotic use in health facilities is49.6% . This is a bad practice since the norm is not to use any antibiotic inwatery, non-bloody diarrhoea.The national average for percentage of this mode of treatment in healthfacilities is 2.6% and this is not very far from the ideal value of zero use.The national average percentage use of antibiotic is 60.7% and this is a significantdeviation from the STGs.The national average percentage use of any of the first line antibiotics is54.1% with a minimum of 0% and maximum of 100% showing a widerange of 100. The practice is unsatisfactory as compared with the recommendationsin the STG.At the national level, the percentage of use of more than one antibiotic inthe treatment of mild/moderate pneumonia is 2.4% with a maximum of30% and minimum of 0%. The results show a very good overall complianceto STG and needs to be maintained, if not improved.