The government has added 106 drugs including that for Cancer, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C to the list of essential medicines, making their assured availability across India at affordable prices. This also takes the total number of items in the list to 376.<br/><br/>In a revision of the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) by the Health Ministry's core committee, 106 medicines were added while 70 were deleted after a series of meetings and consultations across the country.<br/><br/>A notice by the Health Ministry said yesterday, The NLEM, 2015 has been prepared adhering to the basic principles of efficacy, safety, cost-effectiveness, consideration of diseases as public health problems in India. Essential medicines are those that satisfy the priority health care needs of the population. <br/><br/>They are based on the country's disease burden, priority health concerns, affordability concerns etc. The committee recommended that the list, which comes into effect immediately, be revised every three years.