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Tanzania is unusually ambitious relative to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and around the globe in having a national government-led digital health strategy, which it launched in 2013. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Technical Support Services Project (TSSP), led by Management Sciences for Health (MSH), is supporting Tanzania in overhauling its digital health infrastructure, including introducing electronic medical records, hospital facility management software, and a patient ID system. The end goal is to dramatically improve planning and case management for the country’s health services.

We asked TSSP Project Director Dr. Kenneth Lema and Deputy Director Paul Bwathondi for an update on how the country is progressing toward its ambitious digital health overhaul.

How has Tanzania’s ehealth movement been going?

Health workers not only need water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to prevent the spread of COVID-19 right now but also to provide safe essential health services every day. But 25% of health facilities around the world lack basic water services. One in six facilities doesn’t have hand hygiene services, such as soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub, available at points of care. And health workers in facilities in sub-Saharan Africa face even greater WASH challenges.

Two frontline health workers—Margaret Odera and Dr. Ann Phoya—recently called for improved WASH services during an event alongside the 75th United Nations General Assembly. Read on to find out what it’s like to be a health worker on the frontlines without WASH and the steps they are taking to access and improve WASH in Kenya and Malawi.

Originally published in Think Global Health

Half of all medical equipment in Bangladesh’s public health facilities—hospital beds, ventilators, nebulizers, refrigerators, and vehicles—goes unused. Meanwhile, in Uganda, ultrasound machines are overused for a small number of patients, while many in need go without. In Ukraine, about 40 percent of adults have had to borrow money or sell assets to afford medical treatment.

Originally published in Think Global Health

As COVID-19 spreads across the world, falsified medicines for the novel coronavirus are leaking into Africa, where almost 19 percent of medicines are already substandard and where a number of countries are promoting untested treatments for the virus. The global health community is funneling tens of billions of dollars of aid into procuring medical products for countries without full evidence of their safety, efficacy, or quality—let alone their cost effectiveness.