Abstract for:Last Mile Vaccine Stock Management Dynamic Model for Low and Medium Income Countries (LMICs)

Well-functioning supply chains to deliver vaccines are critical to the provision of health services. Most governments in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), especially in sub-Saharan Africa, choose a distribution model where the government procures drugs and distributes them to health centres using a publicly run Central Medical Store (CMS) and a government-owned transport fleet. In LMICs information about demand and stock-levels is seldom dependable which leads to problems including expirees and/or lack of needed vaccines and wastages .This work seeks to develop a  model that will be of use to LMICs for the vaccine stock level management and demand at the last mile. The work builds upon the model proposed by Gonclaves, 2003 capturing a supply chain with a single supplier offering a unique, non-substitutable product to retailers. The structure shows the supplier who in most LMICs is the UNICEF Supply Division, the retailer represents the specific country and the final customers are the last mile health centers augmented by the end users on whom the vaccine is administered.Vaccine Stock Management involves complex dynamic decision-making tasks that are characterised by  time delays, feedback and nonlinearities, which if taken into consideration would enable vaccine stock level management and demand  be efficient and accurate