POST 00769E : INFORMATION ON SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS?

POST 00769E : INFORMATION ON SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS? Follow-up on Post 00762E 30 March 2005 _____________________________________ In response to Anil Varshney's request, two contributions were received. The first is from Mogens Munck (mailto:[email protected]) from Spain. The second originally in French, is from Bibata Pare (mailto:[email protected]) from Bénin. Ms. Pare probably refers to the WHO/AFRO material "EPI Vaccine Stocks Management and User's Guide". Other sources also reported that users experience difficulties. _____________________________________ Dear Anil Varshney, I recommend that you turn to UNICEF for help. UNICEF is very frequently in charge of large emergency programs involving movement and distrubution of huge quantities of supplies. The last example is Afghanistan, particularly the back-to-school program, in which thousands of tons of school material were moved from Kabul to provinces, and from provinces to districts and then to the final school destination. It was the largest logistics operation until now. I was on a 4-month EPI consultancy in Afghanistan in late 2003 and witnessed the logistics involved, in what UNICEF were doing not only in EPI. One of my very strong recommendations in my final EPI consultancy report was that vaccines be distributed in the same way, i.e. according to the UNICEF system and software in use for all other UNICEF supplies (that vaccines should not be excepted). My recommendation was accepted, and vaccines started being distributed as any other UNICEF supply. Now, please get in contact with Mr. Paul Molinaro, who I think is now in UNICEF Supply Division, Copenhagen. Paul can direct you to the best logistics software available right now. The specs for the software that you are looking for, appear to me to be very close to the software Paul used in Afghanistan, when we both were there. Another matter: when will the fantastic EPI training institute in Poone be put into use again. In that Institute we (Mr. Ahindra Lal Bhuyan (now UNICEF retired), Mr. Kumar Wadhawan (also UNICEF retired), Mr. Gopal Baru (UNICEF, Lucknow), Mr. Chowdhury, and myself) trained in the mid-1980s hundreds of refrigerator mechanics and also trained several hundreds technicians on cooling and freezing rooms. Later Soren Spanner and Terry Hills did the same in the mid- 1990s on fridges with the new freon- free gases. But this is now very long time ago. The need outside India, i.e. the countries in Central Asia and Africa, where I have been working in the last few years, is enormous. In spite of many recommendations and much encouragement I have not succeeded to have people sent to India from other countries. Good luck in your work and all the best, Mogens Munck ------------------------------- I think that applications taking most of M. Varshney concerns into account already exist at WHO. If I can trust my memory, such applications have been largely published on TechNet21. As far as I know, the computerised “Register for vaccines management, diluents and consumablesâ€