Deficient supplies of drugs for life threatening diseases in an African community.

Background: In Malawi essential drugs are provided free of charge to patients at all public health facilities in order to ensure equitable access to health care. The country thereby spends about 30% of the national health budget on drugs. In order to investigate the level of drug shortages and eventually find the reasons for the drugs shortages in Malawi, we studied the management of the drug supplies for common and life threatening diseases such as pneumonia and malaria in a random selection of health centres.

[Attitudes to estrogen replacement therapy among Norwegian women].

Background: The aim of the study was to investigate women's attitudes towards hormone treatment (HT), their judgment of the various sources of information, and their knowledge of indications for HT.

Methods: We posted questionnaires to 1000 Norwegian women between 45 and 60 years of age, randomly selected from the National Register. We received replies from 386 women (38.