FG inaugurates committee on improving access to essential medicines

The Federal Ministry of Health has inaugurated the Technical Committee on the Implementation of Stock Visibility Solution (SVS) with a view to improve the supply chain management in the health sector.

Inaugurating the committee in Abuja, Professor Isaac Adewole said that the SVS would allow health clinics’ dispensaries to report on stock levels on the shelves through a custom – built mobile application. He also said that it would be based on data reported from the clinics.

He also informed that it would synchronize in real time to a cloud-housed server that would automate alerts and reports for the benefits of various levels of supply chain management in Nigeria.

The Minister noted that the data would allow products of supply chain management last mile visibility to health facilities to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the distribution of stock which in turn would increase access to quality medicine.

He adding that through SVS, Federal Ministry of Health would have access to granular stock level data from the last mile.

According to the Managing Director of Vodacom Business Nigeria, a partner of the initiative, Mr Lanre Kolade, the solution when deployed would improve the health care efficiency by enabling the increased availability of essential medicines across the country.

The Chairman of the Committee who is also the Permanent Secretary, FMOH, Mr. Clement Uwaifo pledged that the committee would take the assignment seriously and deliver on its terms of reference.

Terms of reference for the SVS Technical Committee include to determining the technical requirements for the implementation of SVS in all states of the Federation and FCT; implement/ integrate the SVS  within the structure of the LMIS; set up a functional national database with dashboard in the 36 states ,FCT and the Federal Ministry of Health and co-opt relevant Agencies / stakeholders when necessary.