Abstract:

Background: Access to medicines is part of human right to health (1). WHO assess how easily households obtain medicine for acute conditions including diarrhoea through household surveys. Diarrhoea is among the top ten leading causes of death (2) and anti-diarrhoea medicines saves life but should be available and obtainable to do so.

Methods: The study was a cross-sectional survey conducted at Musoma municipal council, Mara, Tanzania. Nine streets were selected by lottery method of random sampling. Study population was 225 household heads from households selected by systematic random sampling in each street. A questionnaire was used to obtain information from households.

Results: Males (51.8%) had more diarrhoea episodes compared to females (48.2%). Among all patients with diarrhoea, 79.1% medication was prescribed/recommended but 63.5% of them obtained anti-diarrhoea medicine was ADDO shops (38%). Majority of anti-diarrhoea medicines used were antimicrobials (77.5%) followed by ORS (17.5%), Zinc (3%) and Loperamide (2%).

Discussion: Utilization of primary health care services was only 21.5%. Under-fives were mostly prescribed with antimicrobials (62.5%) than ORS (31.2%) and Zinc (6.3%) in mild to moderate dehydration contrary to Standard treatment guidelines (STG) in Tanzania.

Conclusion: Anti-diarrhoea medicines are moderately easily obtained in Musoma municipal (50% of all diarrhoea patients obtained medicines). Financial reasons seems not to be a significant factor hindering (10%).