The Directorate of Health Products and Technologies (HPT) held a County Security Technical Working Group meeting to review the stock status of the essential medical supplies.

They also discussed strengthening the supply chain in the county.

The two-day meeting, supported by USAID Afya Ugavi, USAID NAWIRI, and Save the Children Kenya, sought to enhance the distribution of the commodities to adequately stock all facilities.

They also proposed plans for reducing the stock rate of health products across all programs.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Director for HPT Paul Kare urged the participants to consider innovative approaches, in which health commodities can be redistributed by assessing the consumption rate.

“We need to assess and decide on whether to use the consumption or the population rates in redistributing the health commodities,” he said.

He challenged the bio-medical engineering team to work on having a functional and non-functional equipment inventory management system.

The Ag Director for Medical Services, Alice Akalapatan, pointed out the need to identify health facilities that were overstocked and with short expiry health products to be prioritized in the planned redistribution process.

The County Pharmacist, Brian Muyokani, recommended the reception of stock to be 3-6 months to avoid the expiration of available health commodities as well as to ensure standards and accountability mechanisms on health products.

In attendance were Sub-county pharmacists, representatives from Sub-county health management teams, and partner representatives from USAID Afya Ugavi, USAID Imarisha Jamii, UNICEF Kenya, and the International Rescue Committee.