Malaria is among the principal causes of morbidity and mortality in the DRC, accounting for an estimated 40 percent of outpatient visits to health facilities among children under five years of age and 40 percent of overall child mortality. The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) estimates that the DRC accounts for 11 percent of all cases of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.
In September 2017, the Global Health Supply Chain Technical Assistance (GHSC-TA) Francophone Task Order (TO) successfully brokered the first end use verification (EUV) survey in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that collected data from across 25 of the 26 provinces in the country. For the first time, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria provided financial and human resources to participate in the PMI-supported EUV survey. GHSC-TA’s methodology included a rigorous, stratified sampling strategy that included a nationally representative sample of 392 health care facilities, 26 regional distribution centers (CDRs) and 50 district level warehouses. The results of the survey will be available by the end of November 2017.
The EUV survey helps to assess the availability of malaria commodities and tracks stock outs at facilities to improve distribution of commodities within the country. With results from this EUV survey, the National Malaria Control Program will have valuable information on commodity availability and clinical practices at the service delivery point that will support decision making to improve the fight against one of the country’s top killers.
