IMproving Public health outcomes through enhancing Accelerated Access to Care and Treatment innovation for COVID-19 (IMPAACT4C19) project
Leveraging KNCV’s expertise and partnerships to accelerate access to effective COVID-19 rapid tests.
The IMPAACT4C19 consortium is led by The Aurum Institute in partnership with KNCV and the Treatment Action Group. The project’s goal is to improve access to effective COVID-19 rapid tests (antigen-detection rapid diagnostic tests (AgRDTs)) and new treatments, in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, the Philippines, and South Africa.
The IMPAACT4C19 consortium is seeking to achieve this goal through policy and regulatory support, technical support to ministries of health, supply chain and procurement assistance, and demand generation in communities.
The IMPAACT4C19 implementation partners are also building the evidence base for self-testing, to leverage digital tools for enhanced treatment and linkage to care systems, and to support ministries in implementing new guidelines on treatment and regulatory policies and program strategies informed by pandemic response.
KNCV works with our project partners to guide the project and strategy for research, diagnostics, and digital health for all five countries. KNCV also leads the project implementation in Ethiopia and the Philippines. Over the past year, KNCV has conducted research in Philippines, Ghana, and Ethiopia, to assess the feasibility and acceptability of rapid-antigen selftests. We expect to publish the research results mid-2023, however, this work has already had a significant impact. KNCV’s initial research findings have, thus far, supported the introduction of COVID-19 self-testing guidelines in Ghana and Ethiopia. KNCV is also supporting training on new therapeutics guidelines and the roll out of updated care pathways, so that, as more COVID-19 treatment drugs become available, the countries are able to move more quickly to introduce the new treatments into patient care.
In the Philippines, KNCV is supporting local government health units to pilot coordinated communityroll out of approved self-tests. KNCV is also helping to improve capacity for facility-based rapid tests by providing diagnostics training for health care workers and supplying Ag-RDT tests to facilities to meet demand.
As a direct result of KNCV’s collaboration with the ministry, Ethiopia has approved the use of three new COVID-19 therapeutics, and has placed an order for its first COVID-19 antiviral medication, molunupiravir. KNCV is supporting the roll-out of molunupiravir, and will monitor its effectiveness through an enhanced “Test and Treat” evaluation later this year.
KNCV is also leveraging digital tools already used in the five IMPAACT4C19 project countries to improve the COVID-19 response. These initiatives include: developing e-learning courses for case management, improving back end Digital Health Information Systems (DHIS2) systems and dashboards for better capturing of data, streamlining multi-disease response through TB and COVID-19 bi-directional screening apps, and providing telehealth, WhatsApp-based, and free interactive voice recognition (IVR) services for individuals.
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