A Digital Approach for Targeted Injectable Contraceptive Usage

Maisha Meds is a technology-enabled healthcare company committed to ensuring that essential medicines are available and accessible to low income patients across Africa. We have seen firsthand that discounts on medications given to pharmacies and manufacturers are often not passed along to patients, and that low-income patients often pay very high prices for essential medications. We are thus developing our digital platform to provide, in addition to its POS and inventory management functions, targeted and verifiable subsidies at the point of patient care to ensure patients can access high-impact products at discounted prices or for free.Our current pilot has focused on vouchers for family planning products, with an emphasis on encouraging patients to opt for more effective and affordable long acting reversible contraceptives, especially Sayana Press. Early data from our test of subsidies confirms that this approach will increase uptake of injectable contraceptives, and we are keen to test this at a larger scale with both contraceptives and other high-impact health products to assess feasibility and cost-effectiveness and to inform similar models in other markets.