We have some catching up to do! The pandemic has limited our ability to travel to IDA’s partners around the world. Fortunately, online meetings and contacts are efficient and allow us to work effectively as well. Nonetheless, we recognise the added value that local face-to-face meetings have, and current visits to our African agents. distributors and other partners were long overdue.

At IDA Foundation we are committed to supporting health organisations in LMICs with the roll-out of vaccination programmes. We have already received our first orders, and we hope to supply vaccination-related products to many more customers. To facilitate and support those customers, we have created an overview of all the products needed for vaccination. By grouping these different items in one factsheet we hope to ease the ordering process.

India is slowly recovering from a severe and devastating second COVID-19 wave, during which India reported 414.188 daily new cases at its highest peak on 7 May (WHO, 2021). Cities such as Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra have been hit especially hard by this wave.

On World Health Day, we celebrate the founding of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on April 7 in 1948. This year’s campaign is ‘building a fairer, healthier world’, emphasising the importance of equality in access to healthcare.

This month, IDA supplied 500 oxygen concentrators to Dubai and Ghana for one our largest customers to be distributed to various end destinations in Africa and Asia.

World AIDS Day, held on December 1 since 1988, is an international day dedicated to creating awareness of the HIV/AIDS burden worldwide. Thus far, of the approximately 38 million people with HIV worldwide, around 26 million are on retroviral therapy, which is triple the number in 2010 (UN Report, 2020). Furthermore, AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 56% since 2005 (UNAIDS, 2019). Despite these achievements, significant challenges remain, with increasing rates of infections in key communities.

In this pandemic, QA remains vital as always, as we found ways to ensure continued supply of essential (PPE) products. As ADB's Jesper Pedersen commented: “The best practice for supply chain responsiveness and resiliency is to perform key aspects of quality assurance upfront to ensure parties involved in the manufacture of goods adhere to the applicable national or international standards of the items being produced. Quality control is then handled upon physical inspection of the goods to ensure the delivered items meet the agreed standards. This is exactly what we have seen so far in our relationship with IDA – the right goods, delivered at the right time, and to the agreed standard.”

On Monday July 6, Johnson & Johnson announced a price reduction of the anti-tuberculosis medicine bedaquiline, for low- and middle-income countries. Thanks to the support of USAID and the Global Fund, this price reduction could be achieved. The price dropped from $400 to $340 for a six-month treatment regimen.

While coronavirus (COVID-19) dominates the news, we need to remember that another respiratory disease kills 1.5 million people per year: tuberculosis (TB). This is an opportunity to unite forces in the fight against TB and coronavirus.