The purpose of national standard treatment guidelines 2020 is
to provide evidence-based, practical, and implementable
guidance to prescribers to provide the most cost-effective and
affordable treatment of priority health conditions in a country.
Together with the Practical Guidelines for Dispensing
at Lower/Higher Health Facility Level, which provide
information about medicine characteristics, administration,
and side effects, the UCG are designed as a practical tool to
support daily clinical practice by providing a reliable reference
for health workers on appropriate management of Uganda’s
common health conditions. It also gives health managers a
reference tool to assess and measure service quality.
The guidelines are also the basis for the formulation of
the essential medicines and health supplies list of Uganda
(EMHSLU) which are used to guide supply and procurement.
This allows for more efficient use of limited resources to
improve rational prescribing.
The treatments described in the UCG are the nationally
recognised standard treatments, and in many cases, they are
derived from those recommended in the Ministry of Health
Vertical Programmes, World Health Organisation, and other
international guidelines.
The guidelines have been reviewed and updated through a six-
month process involving extensive consultations with public
health programs staff, medical experts, and health workers of
all cadres.
As medicine is an ever-evolving field, this manual is to be
used for guidance, but cannot replace clinical judgement in
individual cases.
The Ministry of Health and all those involved in updating
the UCG sincerely hope that the UCG will make a significant
contribution to ongoing improvements in national
therapeutic services and medicines utilization