Alerts on stock-outs of lifesaving antiretrovirals emerged in a number of countries in the West African region in 2012 and 2013. Several root causes for this have been identified, including a lack of tools to improve the sharing of HIV and AIDS commodity information among stakeholders for faster decision making. This greatly affects the ability of partners to anticipate the needs of the host country, leads to delays in providing support, and creates doubt in the mind of the donors as to actual needs.
The USAID-funded SIAPS Program, implemented by Management Sciences for Health, has provided support to six countries in West and Central Africa—Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Niger, and Togo—to set up a web-based EWS to monitor HIV and AIDS commodities.
