From: Scale-up of the DMPA-SC in Nigeria: Why policy matters
 | Policy and activities | Startup-end date* | Year | Contribution to DMPA-SC scale-up |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Approval and registration of DMPA-SC branded product by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) for provider administration | Â | 2011 | This regulatory endorsement paved the way for the legal use of DMPA-SC |
2 | Approval of DMPA-SC updated label to include an indication for self-injection | Â | 2016 | Provided necessary information for the implementation of self-injection |
3 | National DMPA-SC accelerated introduction and scale-up plan | Feb 2017–Dec 2017 | 2018 | Provided modalities for coordinating the activities of various stakeholders in the process of introducing and scaling up DMPA-SC |
4 | National guidelines for the introduction and scale-up of DMPA-SC self-injection | Oct 2018–Jan 2019 | 2019 | Serves as a guide for the implementation of the DMPA-SC self-injection intervention |
5 | Revision of task-shifting/task-sharing policy | May 2018–Mar 2019 | 2019 | The TSTS policies allowed the expansion of provider cadre that can administer injectables, inclusive of DMPA-SC. It allowed pharmacists, proprietary patent medicine vendors PPMVs, as well as community-based distributors to administer DMPA-SC |
6 | Inclusion of DMPA-SC in the Essential Medicines List (EML) | Sept 2017–Sept 2019 | 2019 | The EML is the list of priority medicines, considered to be most effective, procured by the country to meet the healthcare needs in a health system [53]. Inclusion of DMPA-SC in both the prescriptive medicine and Patent and proprietary medicine vendors (PPMV) lists of the document. This review was to allow DMPA-SC to be listed as an essential medicine so it can form part of the national procurement, and also allow dispensing in Nigeria |
7 | Inclusion of DMPA-SC in the Approved Patent Medicines List (APML) | July 2018–Dec 2019 | 2019 | The APML, a list of medicines that licensed PPMVs are legally allowed to stock and dispense [54], gave policy backing for DMPA-SC to be stocked and dispensed by PPMVs |
8 | The Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan (CIP) 2019–2023 was created and it included DMPA-SC | Mar 2019–Dec 2020 | 2019 | This is aimed at ensuring the integration of DMPA-SC into broader Family Planning programming/reducing siloed support |