Country Overview

The Government of Côte d’Ivoire created a special ministry, the Ministry of HIV/AIDS, to coordinate the national HIV/AIDS response and mobilize national and international resources.

Côte d’Ivoire has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the West African region, estimated at 3.9 percent in adults ages 15-49. In 2001, the Government of Côte d’Ivoire created the Ministry of HIV/AIDS to coordinate the national HIV/AIDS response, and mobilize national and international resources. The Government of Côte d’Ivoire has also mandated each ministry to create a multi-sectoral committee to focus on sector-specific HIV/AIDS-related responses and to improve overall coordination with the Ministry of HIV/AIDS.

SCMS signed a landmark agreement with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to work together to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS receive a reliable supply of quality HIV/AIDS medicines and laboratory supplies. The memorandum of understanding defines the roles and responsibilities of SCMS and the central pharmacy (PSP) for procuring, importing, storing, distributing and usung all PEPFAR-supported commodities for HIV/AIDS programs.

Key Objectives

• To maintain a global supply chain for procuring commodities for PEPFAR supported HIV/AIDS programs as well as other HIV/AIDS programs.
• To strengthen host country supply chain capacity. This is the primary focus of the SCMS project in-country and contributes to achieving the goals and objectives of the PSP’s national strategy for the supply chain of medicines.
• To develop and implement a system that provides timely information about inventory and consumption of commodities at PSP districts and sites.

Activities and Impact

Warehousing and distribution: SCMS helped to renovate the central-level pharmacy (PSP-CI) and district pharmacies, and to assess the distribution system.

Quality assurance: SCMS is supporting the PSP-CI in developing and implementing country-level management information system (MIS) strategies focused on warehouse management systems, logistics management systems (LMIS) for ARVs and laboratory commodities, and respective dispensing tools. We liaise closely with other partners and the MOH to ensure added value and compatibility with other MIS systems.

Logistics management information systems:  SCMS has worked with the MOH in designing a standardized paper-based system for recording treatment information on ARVs and drugs for opportunistic infections (OI's) that have been in use since January 2008. SCMS is collaborating with PSP-CI and PEPFAR implementing partners to revise the tools, and implement a training and supervision program.

We also developed a laboratory LMIS tools assessment in 2008 and held a training of trainers (TOT) workshops in 2009 to initiate the LMIS roll-out. This comprehensive and collaborative new system will improve the logistics flow for other major HIV/AIDS donor organizations by taking into account technology constraints and enabling all to contribute data. The number of reporting centers has increased, and the accuracy of the information received has improved—enabling the PSP to better manage national quantification of ARV and laboratory commodity needs, and reduce stockouts and product expiries.

Supply planning and forecasting: SCMS provides technical assistance to the National Quantification Committee at the PSP-CI for annual ARV and laboratory quantification and forecasting exercises.

Procurement:  SCMS conducted a pre-qualification exercise with local vendors as part of the field office managed procurement plan. Local vendors participated in a bidder’s conference to learn more about the SCMS procurement process, US Government procurement regulations, and on-time delivery standards. After the request for proposal (RFP) process, local vendors will be audited and will undergo a quality assessment, which will determine whether or not they are selected as a qualified local vendor.

Strategic planning and coordination: In September 2009, SCMS assisted the PSP-CI in holding a national strategic planning workshop for the supply chain of pharmaceutical products in Côte d’Ivoire. The workshop produced the National Strategic Plan for the supply chain of medicines for 2010 through 2013.