In 2018, for the first time, VSS will procure HIV drugs that will be covered by the Social Health Insurance Program. Over the last year, USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) activity has been training VSS staff on procedures for provincial forecasting and bidding.

On January 3, VSS announced their 2017 centralized procurement results, which showed a decrease in prices by 7%- 54.7% in provinces compared to previous procurements. This has saved VSS $11 million predominantly because it was one centralized procurement as opposed to many decentralized procurements by individual provinces.

So What? GHSC-PSM’s capacity building activities supported VSS to successfully complete their 2017 bidding that resulted in a cost savings.  Skills and experiences gained from this first bidding will be applied to the upcoming 2018 HIV drug bidding cycle.