Blog

Pandemics challenge the efficacy and resiliency of many systems, including the pharmaceutical system—how medicines and other medical products are managed in health systems. That’s particularly true in low- and middle-income countries, which already face significant challenges in securing sustainable access to and appropriate use of quality-assured affordable medical products.

As governments, researchers, and health care workers work to develop and deliver medical products to adequately prevent, test for, and treat COVID-19, countries will benefit from a response that strengthens the pharmaceutical system to ensure that any medical product deployed in the pandemic protects and promotes public health as opposed to causing harm. 

Key areas country governments and development partners should focus on include:

Read this blog on the CSEM website

As COVID-19 infiltrates the physical, mental, social, economic and geographical landscapes we all inhabit, citizens around the world are forced to obey new national laws and policies on social isolation, lockdowns, and movement restrictions.

For some groups of particularly vulnerable people - the elderly, disabled, those suffering from physical and mental ill-health or those at risk of violence and abuse - the restrictive measures have a significant and negative effect. These people’s health and wellbeing, in all senses, are being corroded. In some cases, people are in extremely threatening and deadly situations.

So who is making these decisions on isolation and lockdowns? How do their judgments take into consideration the wider impact on the population and the secondary effects of these restrictions, especially on vulnerable people? We, a group of colleagues working on universal health coverage, decided to do a rapid analysis of 24 national COVID-19 Taskforces to identify their composition and investigate their decision-making processes. What we found out was shocking.

Story by Samy Rakotoniaina and Misa Rahantason

Malaria is one of the leading causes of mortality among children under five in Madagascar. Atsimo Andrefana is one of Madagascar’s regions most severely impacted by endemic malaria. More than half of the population in this region lives more than five kilometers from the nearest health facility, putting Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) on the front lines in the fight against malaria.

Retsilake is one of the 6,000 high-performing CHVs supported by the USAID-funded Accessible Continuum of Care and Essential Services Sustained (ACCESS) project. ACCESS is implemented by Management Sciences for Health (MSH), in partnership with a consortium of international and local organizations, and alongside Madagascar’s Ministry of Public Health. The project is partly funded by the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI).

Retsilake diagnosed and treated nearly 2,000 children from his village and the surrounding area during a particularly severe malaria outbreak in 2015. He understands the impacts of malaria on children's health and this keeps him motivated to serve his community.

Raian Amzad, a technical advisor with the DFID-funded Better Health in Bangladesh (BHB) project, and her colleagues took time away from their regular work to help Bangladesh’s central response to COVID-19. Here’s how the project and the country are handling the pandemic threat. 

Can you tell me about your recent work assignment related to COVID-19? What did your typical day look like?

On March 17, the Directorate General of Health Services opened a temporary Integrated Control Room for COVID-19 response. Fifteen different groups are working there. I was in one with other developmental partners.

The control room guides, supervises, and monitors the entire country in responding to COVID-19; facilitating meetings with donors; disseminating awareness messages and myth busters for the public; developing guidelines for the health workforce; and coordinating logistics, commodities, and media outreach. I have been engaged in all sorts of tasks, and it was enlightening to work so closely with the government health system.