Brief description
Today, health supply chains face new and unprecedented threats from global pandemic outbreaks that often occur in the world’s most vulnerable areas. One need not look far with the enormous impact the COVID-19 virus has had and is likely to continue to have.
Well-functioning country-wide supply chains are mission-critical in delivering the Universal Health Care (UHC) agenda and form the backbone of resilient health systems. In recent years, most African countries have integrated UHC as a goal in their national health strategies. While progress has been made, investments in the supply chains that sustainably underpin the principles of availability and choice to populations remains chronically weak, especially at the last mile. This study, funded by the UN World Food Program aims to develop a systems-inspired framework, capable of linking system actors and interventions to the health-related objectives for both UHC and pandemic preparedness and response and to understand resilience qualifiers to define leverage points as investment roadmap for stakeholders and disaggregate the connection between supply chain capacity strengthening and pandemic preparedness.
Project purpose
According to the WHO and the World Bank, the disruption of essential medicine supply chains during pandemic response is a silent killer that often exacerbates morbidity of preventable diseases to levels greater than pandemic morbidity. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and against the backdrop of continually more complex context associated with COVID-19, the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was grappling with two further distinct outbreaks – COVID-19, Ebola, and Bubonic Plague. During the previous Ebola outbreak there have been more deaths attributable to measles than Ebola during the same period. To quote, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, who said he was “embarrassed to talk only about Ebola” in response to questions on recent health developments in the DRC. The situation in DRC is unfortunately not the exception but the norm. Research in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea highlights that during the 2013-2016 Ebola crisis, there were also drastic increases in preventable diseases due to comprised essential medicine supply chains.
Earlier this year, the World Health Organization and UNICEF warned of an alarming decline in the number of children receiving life-saving vaccines around the world: 80 million children under one year of age live in a country that has reported some kind of disturbance to the immunization program largely due to limited access to health centers, low availability of PPE for healthcare workers and fear of contracting COVID-19. Countries, and regions, are very much focused on activities to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats of international concern to limit any socioeconomic impact of transborder. This is known as Global Health Security (GHS).
Across the globe, an estimated 2 billion people currently do not have access to essential medicines – despite progress being made, more needs to be done to reach those without access. Well-functioning country-wide supply chains are mission-critical in delivering the Universal Health Care (UHC) agenda and form the backbone of resilient health systems. In recent years, most African countries have integrated UHC as a goal in their national health strategies. While progress towards UHC has been made, investments in the supply chains that sustainably underpin the principles of availability and choice to populations remains chronically weak, especially at the last mile.
The purpose of this study is
(1) to develop a systems-inspired framework, capable of linking system actors and interventions to the health-related objectives for both UHC and pandemic preparedness and response and
(2) Understand resilience qualifiers to define leverage points as investment roadmap for stakeholders and disaggregate the connection between supply chain capacity strengthening and pandemic preparedness. The purpose of the Project is further progressing the milestones delivered during Phases 1 and 2, which were successfully completed in 2021. These phases comprised the development of a system dynamics model (the “Tool”) supported by a comprehensive literature review, interviews and a validation workshop. Phase 3 shall now pilot and roll-out this developed model by means of three (3) distinct steps (data assessment, data collection, and simulation) supported by three (3) workshops.
Subjects
Digital Transformation, Humanitarian Logistics, Supply Chains
