With support from the Global Fund, Apotheker, in collaboration with the Christian Social Services Commission (CSSC) and Ministry of Health, is implementing a one-year project focused on strengthening and sustaining the HIV module within the Unified Community System (UCS).UCS is Tanzania’s national digital platform that equips community health workers and peer educators with tools for enrolment, follow-up, referrals, and reporting across priority community-level health programs, including HIV, TB, malaria, and reproductive and child health.
Strengthening Tanzania’s Digital Health Ecosystem for Community-Based Care, UCS serves as a central, interoperable system that harmonizes community health data, improves referral coordination between community and facility levels, and supports evidence-based decision-making at district, regional, and national scales. By centering CHWs and peer providers, UCS enables accurate, secure, and timely capture of community-level health information, ensuring that the voices and needs of people in the community are reflected in health planning and action.
Under this award, Apotheker provides comprehensive technical leadership to:
- Enhance and maintain the HIV, TB, AGYW and other related community health modules, with a clear focus on frontline delivery points
- Strengthen interoperability with national health systems such as DHIS2, GOTHOMIS, CTC3, via the Health Information Mediator (HIM) to ensure seamless data exchange from community to national levels
- Implement and optimize biometric-enabled enrolment and verification of the peers to improve trust, accuracy, and efficiency at the community level
- Develop robust a UCS and Peer registry dashboards and analytics tools tailored for program monitoring and decision-making at the community and facility
- Strengthen data security, implement role-based access controls, and ensure compliance with national ICT and data protection regulations
- Build sustainable user capacity through structured training, documentation, and ongoing technical support for CHWs and peer providers
- Support system sustainability and long-term maintenance, including performance optimization, routine system updates and troubleshooting
Through these efforts, UCS will continue to serve as a reliable, scalable, and secure backbone for Tanzania’s community health information systems, enabling CHWs and peer educators to deliver better care in their communities.
Advancing Community-Based HIV and TB Services CHWs and peer providers are essential for improving HIV prevention, testing, treatment linkage, and continuity of care, especially for adolescents, young women, and people at higher risks. A robust digital system that is friendly to community-level work ensures their efforts are supported by accurate data, seamless referrals, and timely reporting.
By strengthening the HIV module of UCS with a community-centric design, this collaboration will:
- Improve coordination between community-based services and facility-based care
- Enhance real-time tracking of HIV testing, prevention, linkage to care, treatment initiation, and adherence support at the community level
- Strengthen accountability and transparency in peer-led interventions and data-driven supervision
- Support national reporting and performance monitoring while preserving the granularity needed for CHW programs
- Improve data quality for evidence-based planning and resource allocation at district and community levels
Looking ahead as Tanzania advances toward universal health coverage, digital platforms like UCS are critical for ensuring no one is left behind, especially those who deliver care at the community level. Apotheker is honoured to contribute its expertise to this national effort and remains devoted to advancing innovative, evidence-based solutions that improve access, quality, and equity in healthcare delivery.
NextGen Ugavi Bora, Afya Bora (UBAB) Project
Apotheker Health Access Initiative is proud to be part of the consortium members of the NextGen Ugavi Bora, Afya Bora (UBAB) – Better Supply, Better Health program funded by the US Department of State and implemented by JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. The UBAB project is designed to support the Government to strengthen public health supply chains and pharmaceutical services across Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar
Apotheker focuses its technical collaboration with Pharmaceutical Regulatory authorities in Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar to strengthen pharmaceutical regulatory systems to enhance supply chain and pharmaceutical management services.
Apotheker is currently collaborating with JSI and other consortium members of the UBAB program to support the Ministry of Health in Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar to conduct a holistic assessment of supply chain and pharmaceutical management systems with the goal of identifying strengths, gaps and inform strategic improvements to enhance efficiency and sustainability in the overall pharmaceutical services delivery.
