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Historical Bibliography Updated: July 14, 2026

WHO Model list of essential medicines.

San Francisco, CA: Wikimedia Foundation, 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines (accessed 12-2016).

The first list, published in 1977, included 204 pharmaceutical drugs.[1] The WHO updates the list every two years. The WHO later added a separate WHO Model List of Essential Medicines for Children up to 12 years of age.

As of 2016, at least 156 countries have created national lists of essential medicines based on the WHO's model list.[2] The national lists contain between 334 and 580 medications.[3]

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#8064
Permanent Linkhttps://beta.historyofmedicine.com/id/10240
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLwho-model-list-of-essential-medicines-

Geographic Context

Publication place: San Francisco, CA