Posts or Comments 29 March 2024

IPTp &Malaria in Pregnancy &Procurement Supply Management Bill Brieger | 11 Nov 2016 04:31 pm

Kenya: Tackling stock-outs of medicines for intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy

Augustine Ngindu of Jhpiego/MCSP Kenya shared with the Jhpiego Malaria Team at their pre-ASTMH 2016 Annual Meeting retreat the experience in Kenya of drug stock-outs and efforts to combat this.

dscn0339Kenya has experienced periods of Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SP) stock-outs thus threatening the coverage of intermittent preventive treatment to prevent malaria in pregnant women (IPTp). The situation has stabilized from March 2016 through efforts by Jhpiego and the USAID Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) in collaboration with Kenyan health authorities and partners at national, county and facility levels.

Jhpiego’s key interventions focused at several levels. At the national level technical assistance was provided to relevant Ministry of Health (MOH) departments (e.g. malaria, reproductive health and community strategy). In particular the situation on the ground has been used for advocacy with decision makers and managers on prioritizing procurement of SP.

At the County level Jhpiego is building capacity of counties in provision of MIP services by developing clinical mentors. Again advocacy was carried out on prioritizing inclusion of budget itesp-stock-out-affects-iptp-coveragem for SP.

At the health facility level Jhpiego is strengthening the capacity of health facilities to provide MIP services. These activities include training of health care workers and monitoring their performance in terms of maintaining, ordering and redistribution of SP stocks. In addition Jhpiego worked with the MOH to establish malaria in pregnancy (MIP) service standards to enhance the provision of quality services in 336 facilities providing ANC services.

Then at the community level Jhpiego and partners promote MIP service utilization at community level by sensitizing pregnant women to start IPTp early in second trimester. Community health volunteers sensitize pregnant women to start IPTp early in second trimester. Hopefully increased demand will also pressure program managers to supply regular SP stocks.

Concerning the service standards, baseline data collected after immediately training found that 50% of facilities were maintaining SP stocks. A second assessment done during supportive supervision 3 months after training found 86% of facilities now met the standard. As a result of county level advocacy, redistribution of SP was done from over-stocked to under-stocked health facilities.

In conclusion, advocacy is a powerful tool in getting things done as evidenced by responses of County Directors of Health, national government and health development partners on prioritizing procurement of SP. This led to availability of adequate SP stocks to last the country up to 2019.

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