In 2011, the project started assisting the MoHCW and NatPharm to roll out automated data collection, migration, and analysis. With PMI’s support, this process was completed in 2012.

A District Pharmacy Manager enters malaria logistics data at a health center during a delivery in Matabeleland North province. Source: Khozanai Mashava, Area Distribution Coordinator, Matabeleland North

To help alleviate the shortages of malaria and TB commodities at public health institutions, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW), with support from PMI through the USAID|DELIVER PROJECT, piloted the Zimbabwe Informed Push (ZIP) system in 2009. The system was designed to improve delivery of malaria and TB commodities to public health facilities. Based on preliminary results from the pilot, which was conducted in the Midlands Province, the ZIP system rolled out to all of Zimbabwe’s ten provinces.

The ZIP system is two tiered. Commodities are distributed directly from the NatPharm warehouses to service delivery points. At each facility, a delivery team conducts a physical count of all commodities, documents all losses and adjustments, calculates average monthly consumption, and determines the quantity of stock to deliver or retrieve. Trained District Pharmacy Managers act as delivery team leaders for the ZIP system.

Until 2010, delivery team leaders captured essential logistics data including consumption, stock on hand, and losses and adjustments on paper forms. Data from those paper forms was then entered into a central computerized logistics management information system (LMIS) for analysis and to generate summary reports. Manual data entry into the central LMIS resulted in encoding errors from missing or illegible paper records. It also caused delays in data analysis and reporting to stakeholders.

In 2011, the project started assisting the MoHCW and NatPharm to roll out automated data collection, migration, and analysis. With PMI’s support, this process was completed in 2012. With automated data collection, timely, quality essential logistics data is now available to key stakeholders. These data are being used to inform decision-making on the quantities to malaria commodities to deliver or redistribute, as well as to quantify future requirements for the national malaria control program. Between 2011 and 2012, ACT consumption forecasting became more accurate and report turnaround time decreased from four to six weeks in 2011 to two weeks in 2012.

In 2012, the software programs were upgraded to accommodate the expanding number of commodities that are managed by the system, as well as produce additional reports as required by stakeholders, improve sharing of data, and to integrate the LMIS with the NatPharm Warehouse Management System to help harmonize distribution systems.