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this is a Guinness World Record
certificate it states that the world
record for most medication donated in 24
hours was achieved on the 30th of
January this year the Guinness team
counted 207 million one hundred and
sixty-nine thousand two hundred and
ninety two doses in six warehouses
around the world
it was achieved by a coalition of
pharmaceutical companies government's
health organizations and charities
called
uniting to combat neglected tropical
diseases which has donated more than 7
billion treatments over the last five
years isn't that amazing
look here it even says officially
amazing and it really feels amazing to
be part of a Guinness World Record
especially as this record is about
reading the poorest people of this world
against debilitating diseases called
neglected tropical diseases or n t DS n
t DS are a diverse group of diseases
that prevail in tropical and subtropical
conditions they impact more than a
billion people most of them living in
poverty this is George George lives in
rural Africa the reason for his huge
belly is a parasite infection called
schistosomiasis George is stunted in his
development tired most of the time
cannot follow in school the parasite
larvae hide in standing water and
penetrate the skin every time George
steps into water he risks infection if
not treated he might die treatment is
simple three prace fontelle tablets for
his size one treatment and he's free of
parasites until he steps into water
again and his reinfected yearly prace
Quantrell treatment will prevent
irreversible effects like his huge belly
despite the quick reinfection
schistosomiasis is one of the ten
neglected tropical diseases the
Coalition wants to control and eliminate
my role in this program is to make sure
prot sequin tail tablets are produced in
Mexico and shipped to the recipient
countries mostly in Africa last year I
had a chance to do a safari to
northwestern Mozambique into the back
country of Moreau Paulo district to see
how these donated medicines are used to
treat children
NTD treatments are typically done in
massive treatment campaigns coordinated
by the Ministry of Health and its
partners
reaching the destination was an
adventure I was impressed by the
dedication of the local health workers
to treat all their children despite the
poor and remote environment and seeing
my drug containers out there in action
in the back country of Muru Pula
district was hugely rewarding but how do
these truck containers get there from
the warehouses the guiness team counted
them in all the way to the country motor
pool our district how do we keep an
overview of our shipments and make sure
the tablets actually arrive where they
need to go
shipping donated medicines to their
destination is a challenge import
procedures are complex and
time-consuming weak infrastructure in
the country adds to the challenge so in
order to make this happen a lot of
partners need to be involved the donors
the logistics service providers whu-oh
global regional local local authorities
other partners involved in the treatment
campaigns if the collaboration between
those partners does not work seamlessly
we face delays in the shipment and
potentially miss the treatment campaign
no treatment this year if you order a
product with an online retailer you get
an email with a link to the shipment
tracker you click on the link and you
immediately know the status of your
shipment would it be cool to have
something like this for our donation
shipments as well two years ago the
supply chain experts of the coalition
teamed up with some digital experts to
build such a shipping trail it went live
end of last year it is called NT deliver
and at this point tracks the shipments
all the way to the first warehouse in
the country so now we can send an email
with a link to the shipment tracker
local experts can check the status of
their shipment and make sure it matches
their local content planning we are
piloting this right now and we expect
huge improvements towards speed and
reliability
of treatments now when the tablets
actually arrived in the country things
get even more interesting because now
the local organizations need to make
sure that the tablets are distributed
all the way to the treatment points for
example miroku la district as of today
with very limited overview of local
shipments and local inventories the
people who take care of NTD treatments
are very good in planning and
coordinating these massive treatment
campaigns they take care of all the
medical topics but there are no supply
chain experts so things happen a huge
amount of tablets expire in a warehouse
and had to be destroyed we don't always
use all available tablets because the
tablets left over after this year's
treatment are not systematically
channeled into next year's treatment
campaign and sometimes local inventories
identified so late that we are not able
to reroute shipments to other countries
which would have needed them urgently
once again a shipment tracker would be
really helpful but if we want to track
the shipments all the way to the
treatment point we obviously need to
know how many tablets were used at that
treatment point so how do we do that
you've seen this picture before look at
the left edge and remember this is
backcountry Moreau Puna district miles
away from the next electric plug they
have mobile connection actually mobile
phone density in rural Africa is really
high typically no smart phones feature
phones but connection is available so we
tested text messaging input from the
treatments during this year's
school-based treatment campaign in Kenya
together with the Ministry of Health and
its partners we involved more than 1200
teachers we tracked the shipment all the
way from the central warehouse
and the teachers after treating their
children in school send a text message
with a batch number and the number of
tablets used directly into the system
the pilot clearly showed that the system
works so now first time ever we have
end-to-end visibility of our shipments
from the initial foundation through the
central warehouse all the way to the
treatment points all in one place in
real-time on the mobile phone so here
are two examples of what we can do now
the system shows that a school has only
used very limited amount of tablets this
is real-time so we can follow up perhaps
there was not enough food available and
as praziquantel needs to be given after
a meal only very limited amount of
children could be treated the local
experts cannot work with the teachers to
get the food available and have the
children back on the treatment schedule
within a few days the system also knows
all the inventory in the country which
patches which expiry dates so we can
proactively steer where and when tablets
are used to avoid expiry and destruction
and of course knowing the inventory
still in the country allows us to supply
the exact amount of additional tablets
needed for next year's treatment
campaign let's take the idea even
further the next step would be to ask
for the number of people treated this
would give us a real-time treatment
report the current paper-based report
takes about 12 to 15 months to become
available treatment reports are
important to measure the implementation
of NTD treatments worldwide
a system like this could also replace
the paper-based reporting all together
all let's imagine we integrate another
level of information whu-oh publishes
the number of people requiring treatment
per country take that information
consider the amount of people treated in
current campaign and the amount of
tablets still in the country
the system could automatically calculate
the amount of doses needed for the
coming years based on real-time data
this could almost work like one of those
self ordering fridges you can buy
nowadays still many stakeholders would
need to join in to achieve end-to-end
tracking we would not change the amount
of tablets donated but we would change
the amount of tablets arriving where
they need to go at the point of
treatment helping patients we will
increase the impact of the donation
accelerating the journey towards control
and elimination of these diseases saving
George and millions of other people from
terrible suffering and possible deaths
thank you
[Applause]