Project profile — COVID-19 response mechanism

This project aims to support countries to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on programs fighting Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), tuberculosis and malaria. The project also supports countries to recover from COVID-19 by strengthening health systems and future pandemic preparedness and response. Project activities include: (1) procuring and delivering approximately 6,329,000 antigen rapid diagnostic tests to low-income and lower middle-income countries. The most severely-affected countries in Africa expect to benefit from 75% of the supplies and 25% to the hardest-hit countries in Asia; (2) supporting new approaches to continue access to HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria services during the pandemic. This includes virtual health service delivery, door-to-door delivery of mosquito nets, and dual COVID-19 and tuberculosis screening programs; and (3) supporting gender-based violence prevention and post-violence care programs due to the increased gender and intimate partner violence during COVID-19 lockdowns.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) increased support for measures taken by countries to fight the pandemic; (2) mitigated the impact of COVID-19 on the fight against HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria; and (3) improved health and community systems.

Results achieved as of April 2023 include: (1) supported a steady and reliable supply and delivery of COVID-19 diagnostic tests and personal protective equipment materials through the COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM). This allowed countries to acquire urgently needed commodities before the Omicron variant’s peak in 2022. This includes delivery of 66.3 million Antigen Rapid Diagnostic Tests and 15.5 million Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to targeted countries; (2) contributed to bring down the price of Antigen Rapid Diagnostics Tests from over US$5 per unit to US$1. This made diagnostics more affordable to low and middle-income countries; (3) supported C19RM tuberculosis programs rebounded strongly in 2022. This allowed the majority of countries to reach pre-COVID levels of tuberculosis case reporting by the end of 2022; and (4) supported countries to adopt innovative interventions to maintain and improve health service provision through the C19RM. For example, the C19RM supported countries to roll-out bidirectional testing, enabling patients to be screened and tested for tuberculosis and COVID-19 simultaneously. This stopped the onward transmission of both diseases and ensured the diagnosis, treatment, and cure of people with both diseases.