MSH has worked at the grassroots level to support the most basic interventions in rebuilding DRC’s health system. At the heart of MSH’s strategy has been outreach to providers, health authorities, community organizations, and families. By mobilizing volunteer community health workers in 78 health zones, MSH was able to cover more ground, deliver health services to people in hard-to-reach villages, and train health workers, saving more than 800,000 lives. In addition, MSH helped regulate the process for the transparent procurement and registration of medicines.

Highlights:

• Strengthened the governance and regulation of medicines through the establishment of a registration committee, which increased the number of registered medicines in the country from 200 to 4,600 and decreased registration wait time from 82 to 58 days over six years.

• Implemented procedures that decreased stock-outs in warehouses and health facilities between 70 and 90 percent over five years

• Saved the lives of more than 238,000 children and newborns using low-cost and high-impact interventions

• Counseled approximately 4 million mothers of children under two years of age about proper nutrition

• Provided more than 3 million women access to assistance from a skilled birth attendant

• Provided access to improved drinking water sources for more than 1.5 million people

• Provided antiretroviral therapy to approximately 7,600 HIV-positive adults and children

• Assisted the DRC National TB Program in a door-to-door campaign in two health zones to identify suspected TB cases at the community level and collected more than 2,000 sputum samples over four days.