For years, Cameroon has experienced systemic weaknesses within the health system, including a lack of coordination among institutions, budget unpredictability, inefficiencies in storage and distribution systems, and lack of qualified staff. MSH has worked to support health systems’ performance in Cameroon with a focus on effective prevention and treatment of malaria, TB, and HIV, as well as increasing demand and supporting the scale-up of evidence-based family planning and reproductive health services.

Highlights

• Implemented a comprehensive postpartum family planning program to train providers on offering a full range of contraceptive options to women at the 4 largest hospitals in Cameroon’s capital city of Yaoundé and 10 rural health facilities. From October 2015 to September 2016, 10,497 women received family planning counseling, and 3,431 women accepted a contraceptive method, including 236 adolescents (15-19 years) and 794 young women (20-24 years). Uptake among postpartum women also was substantial: 403 women who gave birth left the hospital with a method of family planning and 1,966 women who had given birth in the previous 12 months accepted a family planning method.

• Trained community outreach workers to provide information and referral for family planning and reproductive health services, reaching nearly 13,000 women through group talks at health facilities, in community settings, and during home visits. The effect of the training was immediate: In the Yaoundé hospitals, the number of women receiving a method doubled in the months after the providers were trained and equipped to offer postpartum family planning services.

• Strengthened coordination among HIV program managers and medical stores to improve regional distribution plans for HIV commodities. At MSH-supported health facilities, stock-outs of antiretroviral medicines decreased significantly, from 100% of facilities reporting a stock-out in 2014 to just 9% in 2016. 

• Improved the availability, quality, and use of data at 129 HIV treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) sites. Prior to 2012, the HIV program lacked a system to capture patient and pharmaceutical information. By December 2015, 63% of facilities were reporting on time and with complete reports, and 87% had complete patient information. 

• Supported the Cameroon National Malaria Control Program to improve resource management and implementation of the national malaria control strategy. 

• Increased antenatal care counseling by 49% and postnatal counseling by 59% when MSH’s Leadership Development Program Plus (LDP+) supplemented the clinical training of hospital teams.

• Strengthened the organizational capacity and sustainability of torture rehabilitation centers in collaboration with the Center for Victims of Torture.

• Implemented e-TB Manager, a comprehensive web-based tool, to improve programmatic management of TB and drug-resistant TB. 

• Developed and unrolled the West Africa HIV & AIDS Commodity Tracking Tool in Cameroon and five other countries to capture, track, aggregate, and disseminate information about antiretrovirals, rapid test kits, and other commodities to support evidence-based decision making by HIV program managers.