In Bangladesh, the MSH-led, USAID-funded Medicines, Technologies, and Pharmaceutical Services (MTaPS) Program is helping to eliminate medicine stock-outs and shortages and promote appropriate use of medicines and related products. The work supports essential services for maternal and child health, family planning and reproductive health, and TB. MTaPS is also working to improve the country’s capacity to regulate the pharmaceutical sector, steward the use of antimicrobials, and make the best use of financial resources. In line with these activities, MTaPS is supporting Bangladesh in its efforts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic with a two-pronged action plan: building capacity for infection prevention and control through a training program for health care providers on guidelines tailored to the pandemic and developing an online reporting system that will strengthen supply chain management for emergency commodities.

With support from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), MSH is supporting the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to strengthen priority health system areas through the Better Health in Bangladesh (BHB) project. Support includes technical assistance and rolling out an electronic asset management system. The project has helped establish the country’s first-ever standards for retail drug outlets and implement an accreditation program to increase people’s access to quality medicines and other pharmacy services such as patient counseling. In response to COVID-19, BHB is providing full-time support to the country’s COVID-19 control room. BHB is procuring personal protective equipment for health workers, posting COVID-19 awareness messages, and providing transportation and delivery for collected samples to testing laboratories.