private sector

This week, Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and Devex are talking about how to maximize the impact of access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries. Below are excerpts, descriptions, videos, and links to the conversation. See the full conversation on Access to Medicines.

By strengthening governance and promoting transparency, developing countries can be better equipped to regulate the flow of medicines and support their efficient and effective use. Countries could make much progress by assuring the quality of medicines, but what is really being achieved in practice?

Recent global crises such as Ebola and Zika have revealed the dangers of weak health systems. As countries work to strengthen these systems, Dr. Douglas Keene, vice president of the pharmaceuticals & health technologies group at MSH, advises policymakers to first start by addressing existing regulations and governance.

This post originally appeared on the Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Regional Exchange (SHARE) as "The role of the private sector in responding to OVC issues".

As we travelled to the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, I had mixed emotions about the National Conference on Vulnerable Children I was going to attend. Issues of orphans and vulnerable children are very close to my heart, as I have first-hand experience of growing up with a cousin who is an orphan due to HIV and AIDS. She was fortunate to grow up within a family structure and to get the best education, but this is not the case for many children who are orphaned and vulnerable because of HIV and AIDS.

Cross-posted with permission from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Blog, Impatient Optimists.

Primary health care has many different definitions, but can be defined simply as the first place where people seek care. Within this definition, private sector providers constitute an important source of primary health care in many parts of the world.

Private providers of primary health

Private providers can run the spectrum–from private hospitals, pharmacies, and non-profit clinics, to informal providers such as faith-based healers and drug shops. A 2013 review suggests that informal providers account for as much as two-thirds of health care visits in Bangladesh and Thailand, and a substantial percentage of visits in Nigeria and Kenya as well.[1]

Dr. Trevor Mundel and other senior staff of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation traveled to Tanzania this summer to see first-hand the successes of Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlets (ADDO). The ADDO program, which began in 2001, grew out of the need to transform the duka la dawa biridis—unlicensed retail drug shops—into profitable, government-accredited drug dispensing outlets that supply quality medicines and services to underserved populations in Tanzania.

Dr. Mundel, Gates Foundation's President of Global Health, was hosted by Management Sciences for Health’s (MSH) Sustainable Drug Seller Initiatives (SDSI) team along with Tanzania’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare through the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) and the Pharmacy Council (PC). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided generous funding to support Tanzania’s health sector—including the piloting, sustainability, and maintenance of the ADDO program.