Disease Commodity Packages
Introduction
As recent events of infectious disease outbreaks have demonstrated, the lives of individuals depend on the ability of health professionals to respond quickly and effectively. Often overlooked is what actually constitutes the critical medical supplies and consumables and their related technical specifications. This knowledge will directly support emergency responders’ abilities to save lives.
To address this challenge, WHO has designed the Disease Commodity Packages (DCPs). The development of the DCPs has involved an organization-wide, “team-of-experts” effort and consultation with key external partners. This includes experts from the Emergency Operations (EMO), Infectious Hazardous Management (IHM), and teams across WHO including Essential Medicines and Health Products (EMP), and Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals (IVB).
What are the Disease Commodity Packages?
The DCPs are a series of disease specific datasheets that list the critical commodities and the technical specifications for each commodity per disease. The DCPs inform Member States and operational partners of commodity requirements and potential gaps in the health emergency supply chain. From an operational readiness perspective, the DCPs provide the basis for a globalized stockpile system, response planning, technical guidance and supply market assessments.
Initially, the DCPs consist of 11 infectious diseases; Ebola virus, Marburg virus, cholera, Lassa fever, pandemic influenza, MERS-COV, SARS, meningococcal meningitis, yellow fever, Shigellosis, and typhoid fever.
The DCPs are based on three standard intervention pillars; i) Surveillance, ii) Prevention & Control, and iii) Case Management. Within each pillar of intervention and depending on the specific disease, there are commodities specified for a range activities including Sample Collection and Diagnostics within Surveillance; Chemoprophylaxis, Vaccine, WASH, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and Vector Control within Prevention & Control; and Aetiological Treatment, Supportive Treatment and Health Worker Safety within Case Management. Each of these activities requires specific commodities. The commodities are listed with the technical specifications which have been determined by WHO technical experts in consultation with external experts.
Significance of launching the Disease Commodity Packages now
The need for clarity on critical commodities to control outbreaks and pandemics has never been more evident. Recent Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in particular, have highlighted this fact. In 2014 – 2016, the international health community realized that critical supplies such as personal protective equipment and new diagnostics were not standardized or readily available. More recently, the Ebola Virus outbreak in DRC represented a ground breaking change in response strategy with the advent of a new Ebola vaccine and the availability of investigational therapeutics. The supply and logistical challenges for this particular emergency response, such as the capacity to maintain cold chain storage from manufacturer to remote villages in the DRC, demonstrated the complexity of supply chain operations and the sensitivity of certain supplies.
Finally, the team from WHO’s Infectious Hazards Management Department (IHM) has recently developed and published the handbook, Managing Epidemics, that provides concise and up-to-date guidance on the management of infectious diseases that have the potential to become international threats. As part of the organization’s efforts to combine technical guidance with operational guidance, the DCPs complement the IHM publication creating a robust and comprehensive response package to guide Member States and responding organizations to effectively manage a response.
External feedback is essential
In developing the DCPs, WHO presented the model and technical content to external partners for guidance and feedback. Their inputs have been crucial to the robustness of the DCPs, and ongoing partner contributions will form the basis of extending the DCPs from a largely WHO-driven technical database to a global solution.
WHO welcomes and urges feedback. As the development of the DCPs evolves and the technical database is refined from users’ input, WHO will develop a more formal and operational feedback mechanism to ensure continuous updating and revisions. These may include establishing or linking existing technical working groups, creating informal hackathons, or exploring crowdsourcing platforms with partners.
In the short term, if there are any comments or questions, please refer all inquiries to [email protected].
Next steps – a technical database becomes an operational tool
It is expected that the DCPs will ultimately consist of 35 diseases. The various experts at WHO are diligently working to continuously update the supply lists for each disease on a regular basis to ensure technical standards are up-to-date.
It is the intention of WHO to develop the DCPs into an operational tool based on user-defined criteria providing flexibility and ease of use. Whether it is to be used for preparedness and organizational readiness, stockpile development or procurement, operational planning and response, or support of operational coordination, the evolving tool will be able to be support operational efforts per the needs of an individual user.
Over the next few months, there will be changes made to the DCPs to address specific needs of the health community. One specific addition will be the development of a quantification model for the commodities to establish guidelines for specific users to understand the needed quantities as well as estimated costs. WHO hopes to have this available by the end of the 2018.
The DCP team would like to thank all stakeholders who have participated in developing this tool. We look forward to working with the various stakeholders to expand and improve the Disease Commodity Packages.