New capacities in delivering remote care are saving lives and strengthening Ukraine's health system resilience. 

Through intensive engagement with residents, health workers and other community leaders countered misinformation and eased people's concerns. The result: thousands more COVID-19 vaccinations.

Ukraine is facing extraordinary challenges to its health system amidst the Russian invasion, including attacks on Ukrainian medical facilities and infrastructure. To restore and maintain critical health services to Ukraine’s dispersed population, the Ministry of Health is strengthening its capacity to offer medical consultations via telemedicine. This two-page Progress Update describes LHSS technical assistance for the effort and results as of January 2023.

LHSS is supporting local government institutions in Bangladesh’s densely populated Rajshahi and Sylhet Divisions to expand access to primary health services and reduce out-of-pocket expenditures for low-income urban residents. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused many doctors to leave the country, compromised patients’ safety when seeking care, and displaced large portions of the population away from their primary health care providers. A strong national telemedicine system will be key to assuring access to health services for Ukrainians, now and in the future. Experiences from other conflict/disaster areas may provide insights, helping Ukraine assess and implement its own telemedicine response.

Ukraine prioritizes telemedicine as part of its comprehensive health reform to increase transparency of health service provision, expand access to quality health services, and enhance efficiency in the health sector.

This brief highlights learnings from working with local government leaders of two city corporations and ten district-level municipalities from the Rajshahi and Sylhet divisions in Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, LHSS has built relationships with ministries, departments, and development partners to support its objective of assisting urban primary health care delivery. This newsletter provides detailed information about the latest news, updates, and activities in Bangladesh.

This fact sheet provides a summary of activity progress in Central Asia as well as results and impact.

Both Ghana and Bangladesh have implemented health budget accountability mechanisms. Their experiences offer practical lessons that other countries can adapt to their own budget execution needs. 

Accurate and timely identification of COVID-19 variants in circulation is critical to an effective COVID-19 response. Following the delivery of parts and equipment to refurbish the country’s only COVID-19 specific genomic sequencing machine, LHSS supported training for laboratory specialists on genomic sequencing of COVID-19 virus variants. 

Late last year, health sector practitioners from eight countries met to tackle the issue head-on as participants in the Joint Learning Network Health Budget Execution Learning Exchange. They made meaningful progress.

In Tajikistan, LHSS addresses immediate epidemic prevention, detection, and response needs while building on the existing in-country national health system and health system resilience strategies. 

Poor budget execution results in inefficiencies that undermine the ability of health agencies to improve access to needed health services and improve population health. Yet billions of dollars in unexecuted health budgets are returned to treasuries every year. 

Early in the pandemic, there were no laboratories equipped for PCR testing in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second largest city. To address this challenge, LHSS teamed with USAID’s mission in Tajikistan and the country’s Ministry of Health to train laboratory specialists throughout the nation.