Recognizing this, several inter-agency collaborations and initiatives were established to support LMICs in gaining access to affordable and quality tools for the COVID-19 response, including the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, the Diagnostic Consortium for COVID-19 (involving the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility, the Pan American Health Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Children’s Fund, Unitaid/Clinton Health Access Initiative and the World Health Organization (WHO)), WHO’s development of product selection considerations for COVID-19 diagnostics and more. While these efforts continue to make important progress, the need for greater transparency and access to information at regional and local levels is equally important to ensure equitable outcomes.
In response to this gap and need, the PATH Diagnostics Program developed a set of six interactive COVID-19 diagnostic dashboards. Each of the dashboards aggregates and visualizes publicly available information on available COVID-19 diagnostic tests, addressing specific needs of national governments, procurers, funders and policymakers, and helping them to navigate the complex and congested marketplace to better support their COVID-19 responses.
Given the inherent challenges for procurement officials in LMICs to secure quality-assured COVID-19 diagnostics in a timely manner, in 2021 the Access and Delivery Partnership (ADP) partner PATH developed the COVID-19 Diagnostics Procurement Resource, a tool specifically designed to support country-level procurement decisions. The interactive dashboard consolidates key data and parameters needed to make informed decisions about the technical specifications, performance, regulatory status and supply of individual COVID-19 diagnostic tests.