Abstract:

Introduction: diabetes mellitus is a major global public health problem. In 2013 it was estimated that 381 million people had diabetes worldwide. More than 22 million were in Africa and 1.7 in Tanzania according to international diabetes federation. If diabetes mellitus are not adequately treated or managed, can give rise of wide range of complication that have clinical, social and economic implications. A major concern in the management of diabetes is the availability and accessibility of anti- diabetic drugs.

Aim: the aim of this study was to assess the availability of anti- diabetic medicine listed in standard treatment guideline in public hospital at Mwanza region.

Methodology: a cross sectional study was carried out at three public hospital in Mwanza Region, namely Sekou- Toule, Magu and Bukumbi hospital. The total of 200 patients were interviewed by using questionnaire. Check list was used to check list was used to check availability of anti- diabetic drugs in store. The raw data was entered into excel 2010 was the exported to STATA version 10 then analyzed.

Results: total of 200 patients were interviewed. The majority of the patient were from Sekou Toure hospital 135 (67.5%) the majority of patients were female 111(55.5%). Most of patient were type 2 diabetes 149 (74.5%). The most of patient with diabetes was between 50 years above 107(53.5%).the patients who were treated under NHIF were 77 (37.8%) and 123 (62.2%) not treated with NHIF.the hypoglycemic drugs were available in all three hospitals studied.

Conclusion: the availability of hypoglycemic drugs in studied hospital were generally satisfy. The patient who does not covered with NHIF had poor accessibility to ant-diabetic drugs.