Pharmaceutical Management: Our Impact

Curbing the spread of tuberculosis (TB) requires that patients have uninterrupted access to a full course of treatment—frequently a difficult task in developing country settings considering that each regimen includes multiple medicines taken over the span of several months. These may need to be customized based on the type of TB being treated and the patient’s reaction to the prescribed combination. The emergence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDRTB) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDRTB) further complicates the management of TB medicines.

Twenty-five staff from key pharmaceutical regulation stakeholders in Afghanistan completed a comprehensive training in March and April 2015 on the Global Pharma Health Fund’s GPHF-Minilab™ and its use. The GPHF-Minilab is a portable mobile mini-laboratory kit designed for rapid medicine-quality verification and counterfeit medicine detection in resource-limited environments.

As a pharmacist with the Bariadi Council Health Management Team in Tanzania’s Lake Zone, Vincent Nanai is responsible for ensuring that all 23 public health facilities supported by the council are stocked with essential commodities. However, prior to Nanai’s training from the US Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Tibu Homa project, many public health facilities within the Lake Zone frequently ran out of medicines and supplies.

We spoke with Management Sciences for Health (MSH)’s Beth Yeager, MHS, Principal Technical Advisor, Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) program, and Chair, Maternal Health Supplies Caucus, Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, about MSH’s global technical leadership on improving access to maternal health medicines and commodities. MSH serves as an active member of the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children (UNCoLSC) and the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition. Beth Yeager