Country Overview

SCMS provided over 2 million rapid test kits to Kenya with the goal of testing 2.6 million Kenyans in two months’ time.

Kenya has a severe, generalized HIV epidemic among its 38 million people, with an adult prevalence rate today of about 8.5%. In March 2003, President Mwai Kibaki mandated the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) to coordinate and manage a multi-sectoral approach to the national HIV/AIDS program, providing policy direction and mobilizing resources. In late 2004, the Government of Kenya issued guidelines for HIV testing in clinical sites. The US government (USG) participates in the work of NACC and directly funds the Ministry of Health’s National AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Control Programme (NASCOP). The Government of Kenya has announced ambitious plans to scale up treatment, setting a target of 338,000 patients by 2010. Currently, the country has about 230,000 patients on treatment, served by an estimated 650 care and treatment sites.

SCMS opened its Kenya field office in July 2008. We are working with the Government of Kenya and in-country partners to maintain a system for ensuring that PEPFAR-supported government sites receive continuous supplies of laboratory commodities. This solution includes creating a site reporting system, a centralized data collection point, and a centralized warehousing/distribution system.

Key Objectives

• Procurement and distribution: Procure and distribute rapid test kits and laboratory supplies to meet scale-up requirements.
• Information sharing: Improve the reporting of information from within provinces and into national reporting systems.
• Capacity building: Identify and build processes to coordinate and share lab supply information while improving forecasting and procurement.

Activities and Impact

Value of commodities delivered as of December 2008: Over $7.3 million

Procurement: Procurement activities in Kenya continue to expand rapidly. SCMS has procured 170 pieces of hematology and clinical chemistry laboratory equipment to support the country’s HIV testing and monitoring activities, along with equipment to improve and accelerate pediatric HIV diagnosis. In an effort to prevent stockouts, we have procured and distributed a large emergency consignment of CD4 reagents, and with the goal of enhancing hospital safety, we have procured and distributed commodities for use in safe injection and waste disposal.

Blood Safety: SCMS is collaborating with the American Association of Blood Banks, the PEPFAR technical partner, to procure a wide variety of equipment and supplies for the Kenya National Blood Transfusion Service (NTBS) as it automates its manual processes. NBTS has six centers, 30 employees and three divisions, Laboratory, Donor, and Information and Communication, for which we are procuring new equipment. This equipment will enhance quality control and enable a move toward centralized testing.

Regional Distribution Center: Kenya is home to an SCMS regional distribution center (RDC)—one of three facilities in sub-Saharan Africa (along with Ghana and South Africa) serving customers with essential HIV/AIDS medicines and supplies. These facilities, temperature-controlled and secure, follow commercial best practices to ensure security and quality of products as well as timely delivery. They enable SCMS to hold inventories closer to where clients are located, providing more frequent deliveries of smaller quantities, reducing prices and contributing to improvements in all services for clients in East African focus countries. The Kenya RDC is also uniquely positioned to provide freight and logistics services to our Kenya procurement activities, including customs clearance and distribution of cold-chain products directly to testing sites.

Donation: In fall 2008, SCMS donated to Kenya over 5,800 short-dated HIV test kits from our South Africa RDC. We worked with Kenya’s USG team to ensure that these kits filled a critical gap in the country’s HIV testing activities.

National Testing Campaign: In October and November 2008, leading up to the World AIDS Day commemoration December 1, SCMS provided over 2 million rapid test kits to Kenya. The kits were provided to support the Kenyan government’s HIV/AIDS testing campaign, with the goal of testing 2.6 million Kenyans in two months’ time. The campaign was reinforced by testing everyone who visited a health facility in that time, by launching an accelerated media blitz in the last week of the program, and by including the leadership of 20 top CEOs. On short notice, SCMS also provided the campaign with an emergency order of quality assurance supplies.