WHO logistic team boosts COVID-19 response in Ethiopia

WHO started COVID-19-preparedness operations in January 2020. Since then  Dawit Mersha, the logistics officer has been arriving at his office every day at 6 am.

Dawit’s day starts by planning and arranging all essential transportation routes and facilities for the Emergency Response Team (ERT) that is dispatched to Bole International Airport, to the Ethiopian Public Health Institute’s Public Health  Emergency , to various Isolation and Treatment Centers located in different parts of the city and other sites.

This time Dawit is supporting Eka Kotebe Isolation centers to develop, review and implement the basic supply and warehouse management tools.

Meet Aron Bekele, a pharmacist responsible for the stock management of COVID-19 medical supply at the Isolation and Treatment centers.
According to Aron, there was a huge backlog of requests at the beginning and they had to prioritize tasks focusing on meeting the immediate needs of health workers. Besides, managing different sites with dynamically increasing demands was overwhelming – to the extent that it was nearly impractical for them to meet the all the needed requests simultaneously.
 

Aron said, WHO officers normally visit the sites to deliver supplies and observe their challenges. The WHO Team got more involved and helped with the physical inventory and store rearrangement. Now, they have a well-organized store and monitor exactly what they have.

Aaron said “I have asked for extra sized Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) from medical staff and I’m registering that now. I now know who took what and how many. We also know what we have in the store quickly. For many people, this looks basic but sometimes such important support is overlooked. All data are registered in our system. At the beginning when our medical staff came to receive anything they want, we didn’t have a system that registered and controlled.”

WHO logistics team continued working with the government counterpart and supporting Eka Kotebe isolation facility, mainly on managing the inventory of supplies. WHO supported the review, with facility line managers, of the first draft plan for the expansion of Eka Kotebe Treatment Center. Mapping supplies availability with partners and defines needs/gaps then strategy to fill in the gaps for different scenarios.