September 2014

Expanding access to essential maternal health medicines saves mothers’ lives. Access to life-saving maternal medicines requires an effective supply chain that delivers the right medicines to the right people at the right times. In many countries, weak pharmaceutical management systems are unable to meet the challenges of providing access to these essential medicines. While efforts to date have been focused on providing support to strengthen national level programs and procurement practices, there is growing evidence that suggests that local procurement (at the district, or hospital level) of these essential medicines is common in many countries.

Cross-posted with permission from mHealthKnowledge.org.

In the private sector, Tanzania has more than 1,000 pharmacies, 2,500 pharmaceutical personnel, 6,000 accredited drug dispensing outlets (ADDOs), and more than 18,000 ADDO dispensers. The Pharmacy Council of Tanzania has overseen these facilities and personnel since 2011, but lacked a comprehensive system to manage regulatory information. Without such a system, basic facility and personnel information was inaccessible, the locations of rural ADDO facilities were unclear, and tracking business and professional licensing status, including fees collection, was difficult. Furthermore, the Pharmacy Council had no way to efficiently communicate directly with the outlets.

MSH spoke with Fabio Castaño, MD, MPH, global technical lead of family planning and reproductive health about MSH’s approach to family planning and what will define the future of family planning and global health. Below is part one of the conversation. 

What is MSH’s approach to family planning and reproductive health?

Dr. Fabio Castaño.Fabio:

First of all, I have to tell you that MSH has been working on family planning [FP] for over 40 years. Our first-ever international program was working with Korea! We supported their successful story of making FP an essential part of public health activities. At that time, we worked on FP from a standpoint of population control. Then, to help improve the health situation, and also contributing to reducing poverty. So, that is an interesting piece of history for MSH.

MSH President & CEO Dr. Jonathan D. Quick shared MSH's vision to bring quality healthcare and medicines closer to home through our proven Accredited Drug Shops program at the Clinton Global Initiative (#CGI2014) "Scalable Ideas: Pitching for Partnerships" session September 24, 2014. Watch a video of Dr. Quick's pitch and learn more about how you can partner with us.