Notes on contributorsBernard Olayo is a public health specialist and an entrepreneur from Kenya. He is the founder of the Center for Public Health and Development, a non-profit which has designed and developed two successful social enterprises -MediQuip Global (biomedical equipment repair and maintenance solutions) and Hewa Tele (a public-private venture delivering affordable oxygen in remote areas). He has over 14 years of experience managing complex public health programs in resource-limited settings in 15 countries across the globe. He is also a technical team member on several World Bank projects, primarily as a technical advisor to a number of ministries of health. Caroline Kendi Kirigia is a public health practitioner with training as a clinical officer, in project management, and a Masters in public health. Her 13 years of work experience ranges from HIV and TB prevention, care and treatment and team leadership with the University of California San Francisco and the Kenya Medical Research Institute's FACES programme to supporting the development of continuous quality improvement systems with HealthStrat and the Center for Public Health and Development in Kenya where she currently works in programmes. Her current work covers her interest areas of mental health, maternal health, newborn and child health. Jacquie Narotso Oliwa is a paediatrician, clinical epidemiologist, lecturer and a research fellow working on improving case detection of TB in children. She has 10 years of experience in medical education as a trainer for Paediatric TB, paediatric HIV Comprehensive Care Course; Paediatric TB; Paediatric Life support courses. She teaches child health and research methods at the University of Nairobi and has worked in health systems research collaborating with the Kenyan Ministry of Health and government hospitals in various quality improvement projects, pragmatic clinical observational studies trials and conducting systematic reviews. Odero Nicholas Agai is a Consultant Paediatrician and Child Health Specialist with 10 years hands-on experience both in the public and private sectors. He is also affiliated to The Centre for Public Health and Development, Kenya where he is a consultant and is actively involved in training of health care workers on innovative technology that are designed to reduce neonatal and childhood morbidity and mortality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated deficiencies in hospital oxygen systems globally but is also an opportunity to "build back better." n Our collated field experience from African and Asia-Pacific contexts reveal practical strategies whereby hospitals can rapidly improve their oxygen systems. We share guidance documents (all open access) for local use and adaptation.

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Introduction Pneumonia is the leading cause of death globally in children. Supplemental oxygen reduces mortality but is not available in many low‐resource settings. Inadequate power supply to drive oxygen concentrators is a major contributor to this failure. The objectives of our study were to (a) assess the availability of therapeutic oxygen; (b) evaluate the reliability of the electrical supply; and (c) investigate the effects of suboptimal oxygen delivery on patient outcomes in selected healthcare facilities in rural Kenya. Materials and Methods A cross‐sectional descriptive study on oxygen availability and descriptive case series of Kenyan children and youth hospitalized with hypoxemia. Results Two of 11 facilities had no oxygen equipment and nine facilities had at least one concentrator or cylinder. Facilities had a median of seven power interruptions per week (range: 2‐147). The median duration of the power outage was 17 minutes and the longest was more than 6 days. The median proportion of time without power was out 7% (range: 1%‐58%). Fifty‐seven patients hospitalized with hypoxemia (median oxygen saturation 85% [interquartile range {IQR}: 82‐87]) were included in our case series. Patients received supplemental oxygen for a median duration of 4.6 hours (IQR: 3.0‐7.8). Eighteen patients (32%) faced an oxygen interruption of the median duration of 11 minutes (IQR: 9‐20). A back‐up cylinder was used in 5/18 (28%) cases. The case fatality rate was 11/57 (19%). Conclusion Mortality due to hypoxemia remains unacceptably high in low‐resource healthcare facilities and may be associated with oxygen insecurity, related to lack of equipment and/or reliable power.

There is a critical shortage of blood available for transfusion in many low- and middle-income countries. The consequences of this scarcity are dire, resulting in uncounted morbidity and mortality from trauma, obstetric hemorrhage, and pediatric anemias, among numerous other conditions. The process of collecting blood from a donor to administering it to a patient involves many facets from donor availability to blood processing to blood delivery. Each step faces particular challenges in low- and middle-income countries. Optimizing existing strategies and introducing new approaches will be imperative to ensure a safe and sufficient blood supply worldwide.

BackgroundPromoting access to medicines requires concurrent efforts to strengthen quality assurance for sustained impact. Although problems of substandard and falsified medicines have been documented in low- and middle-income countries, reliable information on quality is rarely available.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to validate an alternative post-market surveillance model to complement existing models.MethodsThe study used standardized patients or mystery clients (people recruited from the local community and trained to pose as real patients) to collect medicine samples after presenting a pre-specified condition. The patients presented four standardized conditions to 42 blinded facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, resulting in 166 patient–clinician interactions and dispensing of 300 medicines at facilities or nearby retail pharmacies. The medicine samples obtained thus resemble those that would be given to real patients.ResultsSixty samples were selected from the 300, and sent for analysis at the Kenya National Quality Control Laboratory. Of these, ten (17%) did not comply with monograph specifications (three ibuprofen, two cetirizine, two amoxicillin/clavulanic acid combinations, and one each for prednisone, salbutamol and zinc). Five of the ten samples that failed had been inappropriately prescribed to patients who had presented symptoms of unstable angina. There was no association between medicine quality and ownership, size or location of the facilities.ConclusionThe study shows that the standardized patient model can provide insights into multiple dimensions of care, thus helping to link primary care encounters with medicine quality. Furthermore, it makes it possible to obtain medicines from blinded sellers, thus minimizing the risk of obtaining biased samples.

Background Supplemental oxygen is an essential treatment for childhood pneumonia but is often unavailable in low-resource settings or unreliable due to frequent and long-lasting power outages. We present a novel medium pressure reservoir (MPR) which delivers continuous oxygen to pediatric patients through power outages. Methods An observational case series pilot study assessing the capacity, efficacy and user appraisal of a novel MPR device for use in low-resource pediatric wards. We designed and tested a MPR in a controlled preclinical setting, established feasibility of the device in two rural Kenyan hospitals, and sought user feedback and satisfaction using a standardized questionnaire. Results Preclinical data showed that the MPR was capable of bridging power outages and delivering a continuous flow of oxygen to a simulated patient. The MPR was then deployed for clinical testing in nine pediatric patients at Ahero and Suba Hospitals. Power was unavailable for 2% of the total time observed due to 11 power outages (median 4.6 min, IQR 3.6–13.0 min) that occurred during treatment with the MPR. Oxygen flowrates remained constant across all 11 power outages. Feedback on the MPR was uniformly positive; all respondents indicated that the MPR was easy to use and provided clinically significant help to their patients. Conclusion We present a MPR oxygen delivery device that has the potential to mitigate power insecurity and improve the standard of care for hypoxemic pediatric patients in resource-limited settings.

Background: The supply of blood in many low-and middle-income nations in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) does not meet the patient care needs. Lack and delay of blood transfusion cause harm to patients and slow the rate of progress in other parts of the health system. Recognizing the power of implementation science, the BLOODSAFE Program was initiated which supports three SSA research study teams and one data coordinating center (DCC) with the goal to improve access to safe blood transfusion in SSA. Study Design and Methods: The study team in Ghana is focusing on studying and decreasing iron deficiency in blood donors and evaluating social Abbreviations: AFSBT, African Society of Blood Transfusion; DSMB, data safety monitoring board; LMIC, low-and middle-income countries; NIH,