Country Highlights
Cote d’Ivoire has a generalized HIV epidemic with the highest prevalence rate in the West African region, estimated at 4.7 percent in adults ages 15-49. In 2001, the Government of Cote d’Ivoire created a specific ministry to coordinate the national HIV/AIDS response and mobilize national and international resources, the Pharmacie de la Sante Publique (PSP). In addition, the government has 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 the Fight against AIDS.
SCMS signed a landmark agreement with the Ministry of Health to work together to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS receive a reliable supply of quality HIV/AIDS medicines. The memorandum of understanding defines the roles and responsibilities of SCMS and the central pharmacy (PSP) for the procurement, importation, storage, and distribution of all PEPFAR-supported commodities for HIV/AIDS programs.
Our key objectives in Cote d’Ivoire are to:
- Improve supply-chain capacity by improving prescribing practices of service providers, commodity storage and management, and coordination of funding flows to purchase essential commodities
- Improve the accuracy of commodity information at all levels in the system
- Encourage the development of a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS program scale up plan
- Develop and implement a system that provides timely information about inventory and consumption of commodities at PSP districts and sites
Value of commodities delivered as of December 2007: Over $24 million
Progress to date:
SCMS has made multiple deliveries of antiretroviral drugs and laboratory supplies to PEPFAR-supported organizations operating HIV/AIDS treatment and testing programs. These deliveries included an emergency order of $2.4 million worth of medicines needed to ensure that patients' treatments were not interrupted. To aid the country in procurement, storage and distribution of HIV lab commodities, SCMS, collaborating with all partners, organized a national lab quantification workshop which included participants from key government agencies. Key partners agreed on a common supply plan that would simplify the procurement of lab commodities.
The Ministry of AIDS has been supporting NGOs to develop tools for data collection of national HIV indicators, particularly at the rural level. To support this endeavor, SCMS worked collaboratively with HIV/Alliance Cote d’Ivoire, a local NGO dedicated to community mobilization to test the effectiveness of personal digital assistants (PDAs) in improving reporting of community mobilization indicators. The PDAs have markedly reduced delays in the transmission and accuracy of data. Positive initial results affirm the potential use of this system by many other NGOs, especially those located in rural or remote areas of the country where transmission of paper data can take a long time to reach district levels.
Many countries lack efficient, standardized antiretroviral treatment (ART) logistics systems and tools, which in turn can lead to high costs, both in dollars and in lives. SCMS and the Ministry of Health (MOH) designed a standardized paper-based system to record treatment information on ARVs, drugs for opportunistic infections and laboratory commodities at any type of facility. The new system is both comprehensive and collaborative, benefiting logistics flow for other major HIV/AIDS donor organizations.
The new logistics system takes into account technology constraints so that everyone can contribute data. The number of centers reporting has increased, and the accuracy of the information received has improved. This has enabled the PSP to better manage national quantification of ARV needs and has meant a decrease in stockouts and product expiries.
