📋 Tender Overview
Project ID: P176402
Region: Africa east
Component 1: Emergency COVID-19 Response (parent project US$5.3 million equivalent; proposed AF US$28.8 million equivalent)New SubcomponentSubcomponent 1.3: Vaccine Procurement and Deployment(parent project US$0.00 million equivalent; proposed AF US$26.0 million equivalent)8.To support the Government’s vaccination planning, the proposed AF will finance upfront technical assistance to support Malawi to establish institutional frameworks for the safe and effective deployment of vaccines.These include: (i) guidelines for intra-country vaccination allocation; (ii) guidelines/protocols related to ensuring that there is no forced vaccination and that any mandatory vaccination program (such as entry to schools) is well designed including regarding consent and follows due process for those who choose to opt out; and (iii) the strengthening of accountability, grievances, and citizen and community engagement mechanisms.9.The proposed AF will support investments to bring immunization systems and service delivery capacity to the level required to successfully deliver COVID-19 vaccines at scale. To this end, the proposed AF is geared to assist the GoM, working with the World Bank, WHO, UNICEF and other development partners, to overcome bottlenecks asidentified in the COVID-19 vaccine readiness assessment in the country. While mostsupport under this subcomponent 1.3 is allocated towards vaccine procurement (71.0 percent),16.0 percent will provide complimentary support to deployment priorities identified in the NVDP. These include support to: (i) logistics along the supply chain; (ii) the rollout/strengthening of digital platforms linked to One Health Surveillance Platform and the HMIS including the e-Vaccination platform and openLMIS; (iii) monitoring and investigation of adverse events following immunization; and (iv) enhancing waste management capacity including trainings with modules on health care waste management in flood prone areas. The AF will also support demand creation and Risk Communication and Community Engagement interventions that are critical to the success of the COVID-19 vaccination efforts.Although diagnostic testing is part of Malawi’s comprehensive strategy to control COVID-19, limited laboratory capacity (e.g. shortage of test kits, reagents, suboptimal testing performance) poses a challenge in the diagnosis of cases. COVID-19 testing in Malawi is being conducted in 15 molecular testing sites using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and GeneXpert platforms as well as 206 sites using antigen rapid diagnostic tests. The MoH aims to establish the origin and variants of COVID-19 by building in-country SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing capacity which will contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of the pandemic. 11.The proposed AF will scale up and support: (i) optimization of existing RT-PCR platforms incl
