“Pushing” contraceptives in Senegal, but what about other medications?

By Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. | May 29, 2013

It’s become an increasingly common refrain in conversations at the Women Deliver conference: all we’re hearing about is family planning. Even people who support the effort to make contraceptives universally available are voicing their unease that other important topics are not being given a sufficient platform.

While this lopsided organization of priorities might be mildly frustrating for the conference attendees, it could have far more serious consequences elsewhere in the world.

During a plenary session Wednesday morning at the Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur, philanthropist Melinda Gates showcased the initiative to ensure that women in Senegal have access at all times to their preferred modern method of contraception. In order to avoid stock outs and provide women with the widest array of choices, the Senegalese Ministry of Health is promoting a “push” distribution model, supported by funds from the Gates Foundation.

Stock outs of medicines are a problem in many parts of Africa, including Senegal. Among the products that are only intermittently available at many clinics are antiretroviral medications for patients with HIV and anti-malarial drugs.

Senegal’s Malaria Operational Plan for fiscal year 2013 [PDF] notes that:

“One of the greatest threats to the success of program implementation has been the poor management at the Central Medical Stores (CMS), including delays in procuring and distributing essential medications, inadequate quantification, and poor responsiveness to program needs…[Intermittent preventive treatment in pregnant women] has historically been procured and distributed through the CMS, however delays in procurement led to nationwide stock outs during the last two years and a fall in…coverage. Poor supply chain management affects the availability of [medications] at all levels, from hospitals to community health huts.”

Simply put, pregnant women are not getting the anti-malarial drugs they need because of breakdowns in the supply chain. If only there was an innovative new system to ensure that this didn’t happen.

Just for the record, the most recent Global Burden of Disease study reveals that among women and girls in Senegal, malaria accounts for 13% of deaths, while maternal disorders account for 4.2%.

Sounds like a great project for some “impatient optimists” with some interest and proven success in supply chain management.

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