Special Representative Dorothy McAuliffe traveled to Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal November 12-19, 2022, to visit health facilities monitored by Parsyl, which provides risk management and cargo insurance for supply chains. In January 2021, the Office of Global Partnerships awarded a 12-month cooperative agreement to Parsyl as part of the Department's COVID-19 Private Sector Engagement and Partnership Fund to support COVID-19 cold chain data collection and analytics to help strengthen the vaccine cold chain distribution network at the national, district, and local level to support African countries with their economic recovery. Special Representative McAuliffe participated in roundtable discussions and laboratory site visits in urban and rural areas of both countries to better understand the important uses of Parsyl technology to mitigate risks of vaccine spoilage, both for COVID-19 and other diseases that require vaccination.
In Côte d'Ivoire, Special Representative McAuliffe held several high-level meetings with Ivorian public health officials and then followed the route of vaccines and Parsyl's monitoring of their condition from the national level depot to a "last mile" health facility. Special Representative McAuliffe started at Depot Central Expanded Program of Vaccination (DCPEV), the first location for vaccine storage monitoring prior to distribution along the in-country supply chain, then to Depot District Sanitaire (DDS) Koumassi, a district health facility where vaccines are stored and administered to local facilities, and finally to Centre de Sante Rural de Moosou, a "last mile" health facility where vaccines are administered to community members. While in Côte d'Ivoire, Special Representative McAuliffe met with 11 Ivorian alumnae of the Office of Global Partnerships' 2021 Women in Science (WiSci) STEAM Camp, which included Moroccan and Ivorian high school girls.
In Senegal, she first visited the Institut Pasteur in Dakar, which Secretary Blinken visited in November 2021. There, Special Representative McAuliffe discussed U.S.-Senegal collaboration at the Institut for research, public health, and training. The Special Representative then followed vaccines and the efficacy of Parsyl's technology from the national level depot in Dakar to a "last mile" health facility. Her first visit was to Hopital Fann, the National Medical Store in Dakar. She then traveled to the rural Theis Region, where she visited Dépôt District Tivaouane, a District Medical Store that stores and distributes vaccines to rural health facilities, and PS Pambal, a rural health facility where vaccines are administered to community members. While at PS Pambal, Special Representative McAuliffe met with frontline health workers and learned more about the impact of vaccination in rural communities.
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