The County Government has realigned its order for essential medicines support the increasing number of integrated outreaches as part of response to the biting drought.

Through the outreaches, the Ministry of Health Directorate of Health with support from several partner organisations, offers nutritional and primary healthcare across the seven sub counties.

Speaking at the opening of the four-day health quantification exercise, Health Products and Technologies Deputy Director Dr David Moru explained the facility commodities supporting outreaches has witnessed an increased demand.

“With the limited budget of Ksh90million this time, we have to be efficient in the procuring of the essential drugs and equipment that would serve both facilities and outreaches,” he said.

Currently, they are 693 mapped hotspots with 512 supported with integrates outreaches.

Dr Moru said that the sub-county pharmacists were custodians of the commodities thus emphasised they strengthen the monitoring the utilisation of all commodities in their respective sub-counties.

In his part, Dr Nelson Lolos – Health Specialist, UNICEF Kenya – Lodwar, reiterated the same and requested the pharmacists to safeguard the health and nutritional supplements from pilferage and to ensure that they reached the intended users; malnourished children aged 6 to 59 months and lactating women.

The bi-annually HPTU quantification exercise – supported by USAID Imarisha Jamii, USAID Nawiri and USAID Afya Ugavi – ensures continuous and uninterrupted availability and efficient management of health commodities which is central to achieving universal health coverage (UHC).