OUR WORK
PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES AND MEDICINE ACCESS
Getting quality medicines closer to people who need them most is our priority. Apotheker strives to contribute to strengthening pharmaceutical services and enhancing medicines access to the rural and underserved communities in Tanzania and other developing Countries. We do this by working closely with relevant pharmaceutical regulatory authorities, partners, service providers and beneficiaries. We believe that public-private partnership is key to improving medicines access. Engagement of private sector service providers especially at the community level such as retail pharmacies and Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlets (ADDO) and similar models in other Countries is a cornerstone for access to quality medicines and pharmaceutical services.
We provide our support through capacity building, basic and refresher training, provision of working tools and onsite supportive supervision. We also collaborate with technology partners to deploy the human-centered design methodology for digital tools and platform development that aims at increasing efficiencies, improving the quality of work, reducing workload, and increasing data visibility, use and transparency.
PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCH
Our work focuses on implementation research for public health. We conceptualize, design, implement and evaluate public health initiatives. Our key focus areas include maternal, child and adolescent health, Non-Communicable Diseases, Malaria, TB and HIV. We work to improve care-seeking behavior and early identification of disease conditions and referrals for better management. We work to empower Community Health Workers, Drug Shops Dispensers, and Frontline Health Facility staff through training, onsite support, provision of tech and non-tech working tools, and incentives to improve their work and motivation. Apotheker works with technology partners to ensure generation of real time data through dashboards for improving health decision making.
Our activities in public health research are geared to generate evidence to inform the policy, improve delivery of health services and reduce health inequalities.
CONSULTANCY SERVICES
We collaborate with local and international partner organizations working in the health sector to contribute our expertise through consultancy services. Over the decade, Apotheker has worked with organizations such as Management Sciences for Health (MSH) to advocate the ADDO model and provide technical support to those who developed interest in the model. Apotheker provided technical support to MSH through subcontract to work with the Ministry of Health Tanzania under Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Regulatory Authority (TMDA) and Pharmacy Council Tanzania to host visits from Countries such as Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Madagascar, Liberia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ghana, Burundi and Sierra Leone.
Apotheker was also subcontracted by MSH to provide technical support to Countries such as Liberia, Zambia, Burundi, Bangladesh and Nigeria to work with regulatory authorities in the respective countries in developing documents and materials necessary for initiating the ADDO like model in those Countries. Apotheker has also provided technical support to Results for Development (R4D) to evaluate the penetration of Amoxicillin DT in ADDOs in Tanzania, Iplus Solutions for a feasibility study on establishment of online pharmaceutical marketplace in Tanzania; Kilimanjaro School of Pharmacy to evaluate the expansion services for the infusion Unit;, Swiss National Science Foundation on iCHF services and membership perceptions to inform strategies to improve enrolment.