The Kenya Covid-19 fund board has flagged off the first consignment of locally manufactured Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to public hospitals.
This is in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOA) and Equity Group Foundation (EGF) in combating the pandemic.
“With the global supply chain at risk due to the crisis, there is impetus to leverage and develop local manufacturing capacity for PPE production by considering all aspects of the supply chains, in order to meet both immediate needs of the crisis, as well as long-term demand in the foreseeable future.” Chairperson of the Covid-19 fund board, Jane Karuku said.
She also added that the board in collaboration with KAM and EGF had identified an opportunity for local manufacturers to create a regional logistics supply chain for PPEs which could serve Kenya and its neighbors with a consistent supply of high quality medical products.
The board through its health and procurement committees is coordinating the sourcing, quality assurance and distribution of PPEs for frontline health care workers at designated Covid-19 management hospitals.
“By coming together to provide PPEs this initiative has allowed for economies of scale, proper identification of the national priorities for PPEs and guarantees efficient and effective coordination while eliminating duplication of efforts in the provision of PPEs for public health care workers in the country,” Chairman of the Covid-19 fund board, Mwangi said.
The first consignment worth Sh237,218,300 million includes 100,250 disposable gowns, 550,000 surgical masks, 54,000 N95 respirator masks, 5,400 protective goggles, 1,000,000 nitrile gloves, 5,400 face shields, 54,000 head/hair covers, 45,000 disposable medical scrubs, 45,000 shoe covers, and 1000 gumboots.
The Health Committee has created facility-based liaison committees in each of the 68 facilities across all counties to coordinate the receipt of and ensure the rational use of PPEs as guided by the WHO and the MOH protocols, and reporting back on a regular basis to the health technical working group.
The facility-based committees are comprised of seven persons and at least one of these members will be a youth and gender balance observed.
To guarantee timely and secure delivery of the PPEs across the country, the committee has partnered with Fargo Courier, to provide a consolidated logistics solution with end-to-end visibility.
This will be from the receipt of PPEs in warehouses to the execution of last mile delivery to the hospitals, thus ensuring effective controls and complete transparency.
According to The World Health Organization, in a health facility where workers are attending to patients, the use of PPEs is one of the measures for infection prevention and control.
As such, the prudent management of PPE use is warranted alongside other administrative controls and processes within the health facility.
The distribution of locally produced PPEs comes four weeks after EGF announced Sh1.1 billion investment in partnership with MasterCard Foundation and Equity Bank to the the Kenya Covid-19 Fund.