$100m needed to modernise public health drug inventories : WB

A consulting firm has estimated that it will require $100 million to upgrade and modernise the existing public health drug depots across the country.
In a study funded by the World Bank, the consultancy has made recommendations and budget estimates for ensuring effective vaccines, life-saving drugs, health, family planning and other government-procured drug storage facilities for protecting public health.
The consulting firm has given highest priority to construction of EPI complex, new central warehouse, cold rooms for EPI and health procurement, training facilities for depot and warehouse personnel, procuring refrigerators for hospital, cleaning, removal of wastes and renovation of the existing depots.
It has estimated long, short and medium-term work planning to upgrade and modernise the depots and building new infrastructures in the overall supply chain management.
The report said procured medicines by the government stored in district, upazila and in hospital depots are in a sorry state and in many cases. The drugs are losing their efficacy and effectiveness in human body due to unfavourable depot temperature and storage for a long time that leads to expiry of dates.
The EPI vaccines and other medical supplies are in a worst situation than supplies and depots in health and family planning category, the report said.
The country's EPI programme is one of the world's largest vaccination programmes with very little IT support, basically using paper-based records, email and spreadsheets.
The report found that many health supplies are stored in family planning depots that are not favourable for those drugs.
The study 'Assessment of Storage capacity and conditions in Bangladesh' was supported by the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP) and others under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW).
According to different divisional health officials, the existing conditions of medical supply depots are so vulnerable that the drugs are losing efficacy and effectiveness. In particular, the refrigerating systems are not available in many depots to store vaccines and specialised drugs.
The study report, which has already been made available to senior health officials, said, "The supply chain for health has big challenges at this level with store rooms both being very inadequate in size and in a poor state."
It has called for training facilities in supply chain, store keeping, modernisation and logistics supplies that all the medicines would be distributed before expiry and their efficacy must be protected from district to upazila and finally to the hospitals.
According to some physicians, despite adequacy in procurement, currently many remote government clinics and hospitals are not getting vaccines, health and family planning supplies due to faulty supply chain management.
The physicians said in many cases, the drugs are not working in patients' body as they have lost their efficacy and in an investigation, they found drugs stored in unfavourable environment.
Currently, the procured drugs are being distributed in the channels of health, family planning and EPI. The study said family planning has a central warehouse which is not suitable for storing pharmaceuticals as it requires a certain temperature.
The report was discussed at a meeting in the Health Ministry this week but there is no decision and future planning.