South Africa has committed to "achieve universal health coverage including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all", one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set out by the United Nations. As such, it gives me great pleasure to present the Fifth Edition of the Adult Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List for Hospital Level care, which aims to enable equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable essential medicines at hospital level across South Africa.  The Adult Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List for Hospital Level provide a platform for transparency to enable equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable treatment options at hospital level taking into consideration the changing clinical needs of our population and the pragmatic implications of the introducing a new health technology.

Chapters are updated on an ongoing basis  and are available in this folder, superseding those within the STGs and EML 2019 edition.

The NEMLC Report is contained at the end of each updated chapter.