The Partnership for Supply Chain Management (PFSCM) – a nonprofit health supply chain solutions provider and subsidiary of JSI Research & Training Inc. – is pleased to announce that it has been appointed as a procurement services agent (PSA) for the Partnership for Vivax Elimination (PAVE) feasibility studies, part of an initiative that was launched in July 2021.
PAVE is led by Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and PATH, and will support countries in achieving their goals of eliminating P.vivax malaria – a complex and persistent type of malaria that poses a risk to more than one-third of the world’s population.
MMV and other PAVE partners in a joint release explained that P. vivax accounts for millions of clinical cases every year, and is the most common type of malaria outside of sub-Saharan Africa. It presents a major challenge to achieving global malaria targets because of the difficulties in eliminating hypnozoites, a form of the parasite that remains in a person’s liver even after successful blood-stage treatment, leading to malaria relapses and contributing significantly to transmission.
Effectively tackling P. vivax requires treating both the blood- and liver-stages of infection – this approach is known as radical cure.
Further, MMV explained that PAVE works closely with the WHO, National Malaria Control Programmes, and country-based partners to support the introduction and use of effective diagnostics and treatments for P. vivax malaria.
This includes shorter-course primaquine and single-dose tafenoquine liver-stage treatments for adults and children, and better point-of-care glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) diagnostics needed to identify patients that are at risk of having adverse reactions to the class of drugs currently used for liver-stage treatments. Patients with the genetic disorder known as G6PD deficiency need to be screened because they are at risk of developing hemolytic anemia when taking these drugs.
In its role as PSA, PFSCM will manage the operational supply process for tafenoquine and the G6PD analyzers. This entails procurement, quality assurance, and delivery of the products to PAVE feasibility study countries. This year, the first deliveries will be made to Papua New Guinea and Peru.
PFSCM Director Edward Wilson says PFSCM looks forward to supporting the PAVE program with health supply chain services.
“We are excited to support PAVE’s efforts and look forward to using our global pharmaceutical and diagnostics procurement and supply chain experience and expertise to support the fight against malaria with this new diagnostic and treatment regimen.”
Learn more about the PAVE program, and the partners here: