National Medical Supplies Fund
The National Medical Supplies Fund is the government institution legally responsible for purchasing medicines, consumables and medical equipment and providing and distributing them to government health institutions and facilities in Sudan. It is thus a central link in the national pharmaceutical supply chain, as it undertakes securing the needs of hospitals, health centres and family medicine units affiliated with the ministries of health, at all levels, for medical products.
The Fund originated in 1935 as central stores for medicines affiliated with the Federal Ministry of Health. In 1991 it was transformed into an authority operating under the Government Authorities and Companies Act, then it was reorganised in its current form under the National Medical Supplies Fund Act of 2015, which granted it greater flexibility in commercial operations related to purchasing and selling medicines. With the beginning of the 1990s the Fund began operating under a cost-recovery system, in the context of the state's adoption of a cost-recovery policy to finance health services.
The Fund's tasks include purchasing medical products from reliable sources, storing them under conditions that preserve their quality, and transporting and distributing them through its headquarters and its branches in the states to health facilities. Its strategic plan states that its mission is to secure the needs of health facilities for medical products, and that its objectives include the sustainability of the availability of these products in all states, ensuring their quality, applying good practices in distribution, and building the capacities of workers in the supply chain.
The Fund also places among its declared objectives continuing self-financing of medicines, rationalising their use, preventing the circulation of medicines from unreliable sources, unifying the prices of essential medicines in health facilities, and raising the level of services provided in them. The World Health Organization affirms that the Fund is the central body responsible for operating the national supply chain plan in Sudan.
(Sources: Official website of the National Medical Supplies Fund nmsf.gov.sd; World Health Organization, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean; Arabic Wikipedia, citing the Fund's official website)
— Editorial Team
