NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

VENTURES AFRICA – IBM has announced a collaboration with Zambia’s Ministry of Health to provide citizens with better access to 200 lifesaving drugs.

The project, which begins in May with a 12-month trial, will free up health facility staff from providing detailed paper stock inventories, allowing them to provide meaningful health care.

Zambia’s Medical Stores Limited (MSL) has the support of the UNICEF, and London Business School, World Bank and Department for International Development (DFID). With the level of support it has, MSL will therefore establish a new medical supply chain trial with the use of sophisticated technologies to manage both delivery and inventory of medicine.

“With help from our partners, we have already introduced simple improvements in the medical supply chain that will save the lives of thousands of children across our country by 2015,” said Dr. Bonface Fundafunda, CEO at MSL.

According to him, MSL is collaborating with IBM to replace its inventory system, which is paper-based with cutting-edge technology that can pinpoint the exact locations where stocks of essential medicines are running dangerously low.”

About 100,000 deaths are registered by the Zambia’s public health sector annually due to treatable and preventable diseases.