Overview

Access to safe and quality medicines at an affordable price and their responsible use by all populations can help countries prevent maternal and child deaths, create an AIDS-free generation, and protect their communities from infectious disease threats. Further, ensuring appropriate use of medical products can help control antimicrobial resistance (AMR)—a growing global threat that is making infections harder to treat.

Funded by USAID and implemented by a consortium led by MSH, MTaPS aims to help low- and middle-income countries strengthen their pharmaceutical systems to ensure sustainable access to and appropriate use of safe, effective, quality-assured, and affordable essential medicines and pharmaceutical services. The five-year program builds on the work of its predecessor program, the USAID-funded Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) Program. As a core part of its work, MTaPS supports USAID’s efforts under the Global Health Security Agenda to combat AMR. These efforts are directed toward building countries’ capacity to optimize their use of antimicrobials and avert infectious disease threats, thus securing health nationally and globally.

The program’s approach to strengthening pharmaceutical systems is to: 

• Improve pharmaceutical-sector governance 
• Strengthen the national regulatory system 
• Increase institutional and human resource capacity 
• Increase the availability and use of pharmaceutical information for decision-making 
• Improve pharmaceutical-sector financing 
• Strengthen supply chain management
• Enhance pharmaceutical services, including building pharmacovigilance systems and improving pharmacy practices