Abstract:

Access to polymerase chain reaction services for ribose nucleic acid (RNA) for adult and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) for infants was in paucity due to numerous challenges that were not clearly identified for rectification. Poor supply chain management of PCR commodities was prime amongst others that hindered optimization of equipment and scaling up of viral load and early infants’ diagnosis (EID) tests in line with the Joint United Nations AIDS (UNAIDS) strategy of 90-90-90 concept. To overcome these challenges, decision support system approach: where the Government of Nigeria (GON) and supporting partners organized monitoring and supportive visits (MSV) to 29 out of 30 PCR facilities was adopted to provide support using logistics management information system (LMIS) tool to mentor facility personnel. Findings included poor logistics management of commodities, lack of LMIS data collection tool, poor reporting of utilization, stock outs of commodities at some facilities and expiries of same in others, wide knowledge gap on logistics management, poor storage condition. After two cycles of conducting MSV, there was an improvement in the scaling of viral load and EID testing, reduced stock out, reduced expiries, proper storage of commodities, improved on-time LMIS data reporting rate. We concluded that supply chain management through MSV can be used to improve the services of PCR laboratories to meet the UNAID 90-90-90 concept with a recommendation to continue a quarterly MSV to PCR facilities and extend this to other areas of laboratory services.

Keywords: Supply chain management, polymerase chain reaction, monitoring and supportive visit, viral load assay, early infants’ diagnosis, laboratory performance, 90-90-90 UNAIDS concept.

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