Representatives from Senegal visited Côte d’Ivoire in the first CQUIN supported south-to-south learning exchange since the COVID-19 pandemic halted travel last year. Côte d’Ivoire’s Programme National de Lutte Contre le Sida (National Program to Fight HIV/AIDS or PNLS) hosted the three-person Senegalese delegation, which included the Ministry of Health focal person for care and treatment, the Ministry of Health focal person for monitoring and evaluation, and the national representative for people living with HIV.
Following the fourth CQUIN annual meeting in December 2020, Senegal expressed interest in learning from Côte d’Ivoire about the scale-up of multi-month dispensing (MMD) for ART.
From April 7 to April 9, 2021, the PNLS team accompanied the Senegalese delegation on several site visits, including visits to the Angré Community-Based Urban Health Center and the Agboville Regional Hospital Center.
At both health facilities, the Senegalese team observed MMD and patient management in the outpatient clinics and visited the screening, consultation, and treatment rooms. The hosting health facilities also presented their data collection tools, monitoring and evaluation tools, and antiretroviral therapy (ARV) expenditure records. At the pharmacy, the delegation observed the management of ARV stocks and the process for medication distribution.
“We were impressed by the Ivorian Ministry of Health’s strong collaboration with the recipients of care to ensure service delivery,” said Aminata Thiam, MD, MPH, MOH focal person for Monitoring and Evaluation for Senegal. “We were also happy to see the health providers’ commitment to ensuring compliance to the DSD standards, protocols, and the availability of prescriptive guides. We look forward to implementing what we have seen in Senegal. I thank CQUIN for this opportunity,” Dr. Thiam said.
“We appreciate the south-to-south learning exchange with Senegal,” said Facility Dowo, the HIV focal person at the Angré Community-Based Urban Health Centre. “We are grateful for the opportunity to share our best practices and discuss mutual concerns raised and also look forward to learning from other countries as well,” she added.
Senegal joined CQUIN in September 2020. Following a baseline self-assessment using the CQUIN DSD Dashboard, the Senegal team decided to add 6-MMD to its DSD model mix. In the future, Senegal will work with CQUIN’s support to develop policies, guidelines, and standard operating procedures to support the implementation of 6-MMD.