Background
Burkina Faso in West Africa had an estimated 2018 population of 20,107,509. Like other sub-Saharan countries, it has experienced excessive mortality due to AIDS, leading to lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality and death rates. In 2016, the HIV prevalence was 0.8%, with 95,000 people living with HIV/AIDS and an estimated 3,100 deaths attributed to the disease.[i]
In 2012 and 2013, alerts of stock-outs of ARVs emerged in a number of countries in West Africa, including Burkina Faso. Among the root causes of recurrent stock-outs of ARVs in the region, despite a small number of patients on antiretroviral therapy, was a lack of accurate and timely information on patients and commodities for informed decision making. Stock-outs were often realized at the last minute, creating unnecessary emergencies that could have been avoided.
Project Highlights
Between 2014 and 2016, SIAPS supported the deployment of OSPSIDA—a dashboard to track HIV commodities and patients—at the national and regional levels. Despite a strong and functional data validation mechanism at the regional level, the national AIDS program was challenged by significant delays in data entry due to a lack of human resources and limited funding to support this activity. In 2016, with support from the USAID/West Africa Regional Health Office and the Global Fund, pharmacists and monitoring and evaluation advisors from the 13 regional health offices were trained on data entry and OSPSIDA to improve informed decision making. However, challenges persisted and by the end of SIAPS, Burkina Faso was not able to optimally benefit from the use of OSPSIDA for HIV/AIDS commodity management.
