Strengthened cold chain systems help to improve health delivery
Cold chain system helps maintain efficacy of heat sensitive medicines in Timor-Leste
Baucau, Thursday, 11th May 2023 - The third week of every month is a busy period for Joao Cancio Ximenes and his three colleagues at the Regional Medical Warehouse in Baucau, in the eastern part of Timor-Leste.
It is during this period that this hardworking Warehouse Manager, focuses on fulfilling the requests for vital and essential medicines which come from four municipalities attached to this regional hub.
“Before this regional warehouse was established, Health Officials from Municipalities used to travel all the way to Dili to collect medicines for their health centres. This was time consuming as they had to spend long hours traveling to and from Dili,” says Joao, who is happy to be managing this new medical warehouse, which is helping to ease the distribution of essential and vital medicines to different Municipalities.
Travel between Municipalities to collect medicines has never been an easy task for health officials in Timor-Leste. The long winding and narrow roads make access very difficult and labourious. Apart from the long journeys of four hours along the meandering terrains, the perennial blazing heat affects the potency of temperature sensitive medicines, which become ineffective to protect children from diseases once exposed to high temperatures.
Thanks to the availability of a newly installed refrigeration system at the warehouse, Joao is now able to also keep sufficient stocks of medicines which require cold and ultra-cold temperatures, making it easier for health officials from municipalities to access them.
"This refrigeration system has been a welcome addition to the warehouse. In these chillers and refrigerators, we can store some of the antibiotics and vaccines which need to be stored at sub-zero temperatures for them to remain effective. Having these important medicines at the Regional warehouse means they are within easy reach for municipalities to collect their monthly stocks, or when an emergency arises," says Joao, as he explains the efficiencies gained by having a fully equipped refrigeration system at regional level.
Thanks to support from the Government of Japan, four regional medical warehouses, Ainaro, Baucau, Bobonaro and the Special Administrative Region of Oecusi (RAEOA), now house forty (40) cubic meters walk-in cold rooms and freezer rooms to support effective and efficient distribution of temperature sensitive vital and essential medicines.
This cold chain equipment has helped to decentralise the country’s vaccine storage capacity, thereby reducing the time and administrative cost to distribute the vaccines up to municipalities, health centers and the health posts. From the regional warehouse in Baucau, health officials from the Municipalities of Baucau, Lautem, Manatuto and Viqueque now spend less time to travel for the collection of their monthly medical stocks.
The upgrading of the cold chain system has also reduced the time it takes to respond to medical emergencies and have resulted in less wastage of medicines which would have been exposed to the wrong temperatures.
The installation of this cold chain system was also timely as it helped to decentralise the deployment of COVID-19 Vaccines, making it easier for municipalities to access these all-important vaccines.
“These improvements to the cold chain system are reducing the time it takes for health facilities to receive the medicines that are needed at their centres. The quality and efficacy of the medicines is also now guaranteed because temperatures are fully monitored and controlled from the time they leave SAMES, to the time they are in transit to the provincial warehouse and all the way until they are administrated to the patient," says Joao.
Refrigerated transit vans have also been procured, while temperature and voltage monitoring devices have been set to raise an alarm when there is a change to the set optimal temperatures. In addition, some Ministry of Health colleagues have received training on the maintenance and repairs of the refrigeration system.
“UNICEF is happy to have contributed to these improvements to the cold chain system in Timor-Leste, an efficient and reliable cold chain system plays an important role in ensuring equitable access of adequate health care services among children and families in hard-to-reach communities,” says UNICEF Representative, Bilal Aurang Zeb Durrani.
Before closing off for the day, Joao and his colleagues make final check to see if all the equipment is set at the right temperatures. They are happy that with this new system, there have been less incidents of medicines being thrown away after being exposed to the wrong temperatures.
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