Duniya Healthcare, a Zambia-based pharmaceutical and well being logistics startup, says it helped rural well being amenities avert 578 deaths in six months, almost double the 299 deaths prevented at comparable amenities that relied on conventional procurement programs, in accordance with a brand new influence report.
The research, performed by Duniya Healthcare in partnership with the Zambia Convention of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) and the Africa Well being and Financial Transformation Institute (AHETI), supplies quantitative proof linking stronger medication provide chains to decrease mortality in rural areas. It tracked 16 Catholic mission hospitals and rural well being facilities throughout Zambia between January and June 2025. Eight amenities used Duniya’s Rural Distribution Mannequin (RDM) whereas eight others served as management websites.
The report comes amid long-running issues over Zambia’s fragile medical provide chain, the place frequent stockouts and delayed deliveries proceed to undermine rural healthcare.
Regardless of authorities efforts to stabilise provide, most public and faith-based amenities nonetheless depend on inconsistent deliveries from central warehouses or advert hoc procurement by means of non-public wholesalers. The Duniya research supplies uncommon quantitative proof that bettering distribution effectivity can considerably minimize preventable deaths in distant areas.
To measure deaths averted, researchers adopted a comparative quasi-experimental design, monitoring eight amenities utilizing Duniya’s Rural Distribution Mannequin towards eight management amenities utilizing conventional procurement programs. Each teams operated from January to June 2025. Researchers collected and analysed the information in July-August 2025, making use of condition-specific case fatality charges, drawn from nationwide and peer-reviewed knowledge, to affected person therapy information for eight high-burden ailments, together with malaria, pneumonia, hypertension, and extreme anemia. This method enabled direct comparability of mortality outcomes between amenities with and with out strengthened provide chains.
Pilot amenities recorded the strongest influence in lowering deaths from malaria, pneumonia, and hypertension. Throughout the pilot websites, 311 malaria deaths have been averted, together with 167 from pneumonia and 67 from hypertension issues. Compared, management websites averted 56, 87, and 153 deaths, respectively.
The report attributes the mortality distinction primarily to medication availability. Services supported by Duniya achieved 88% availability of important medicines, in comparison with 71 p.c at management websites, a 17-point hole that always decided whether or not sufferers acquired therapy or have been turned away.
The evaluation additionally confirmed that solely 38% of Duniya-supported amenities reported turning sufferers away resulting from stockouts, in comparison with 67% amongst management amenities. For ailments with excessive fatality charges, that distinction can imply survival or demise. “The preferential choice for the poor is our sacred mandate,” stated Bishop Evans Chinyemba, who oversees well being for ZCCB. “Via this partnership, we’re placing our religion into motion, making certain that even these within the furthest villages obtain the medicines they should stay.”
Pace was one other vital issue. 88% of orders at pilot amenities arrived inside seven days, in comparison with 63% at management websites, a few of which waited over two weeks for supply. Duniya’s mannequin aggregates demand from a number of rural amenities into bulk orders massive sufficient to draw aggressive bids from wholesalers in Lusaka. The platform then breaks down bulk shipments and delivers particular person consignments immediately to every facility at no transport price.
“It’s the identical community technique that introduced telecoms to rural Africa,” stated Duniya CEO Mwansa Chalo in an earlier TechCabal interview. “You make scattered demand seen and economically viable.”
The method additionally freed up facility budgets. Solely 19% of pilot amenities delayed procurement resulting from price constraints, in comparison with 41% of management amenities. All pilot websites adopted predictable month-to-month ordering schedules, whereas 1 / 4 of management websites ordered reactively after cabinets have been empty. About 75% of pilot amenities used digital stock programs, lowering forecasting errors and medication wastage, a 12-point enchancment over management websites.
Nonetheless, the report discovered gaps. When stockouts did happen in pilot amenities, some lasted as much as 30 days, suggesting publicity to funding or provider delays. Affordability additionally remained inconsistent, with 62% of all amenities, each pilot and management, saying medicines have been solely “typically inexpensive.” Management amenities cited delayed authorities grants, incomplete deliveries from the Zambia Medicines and Medical Provides Company (ZAMMSA), and excessive transport prices that compelled tradeoffs between shopping for medicines and protecting supply bills. Some pilot websites additionally reported challenges with emergency orders, the place the usual aggregation course of proved too gradual for pressing wants.
To deal with these weaknesses, Duniya plans to ascertain emergency buffer shares, safe extra provider contracts, and simplify fee processes in order that amenities will pay Duniya immediately. The corporate additionally intends to combine extra carefully with ZAMMSA to enhance, reasonably than compete with, nationwide programs and guarantee common adoption of digital stock administration instruments throughout all supported websites.
With a five-year contract from ZCCB already secured, Duniya is about to develop its mannequin to extra Catholic mission amenities throughout Zambia. The Catholic Church operates over 75 mission well being amenities, the nation’s largest faith-based well being community. At present efficiency ranges, the report estimates that nationwide deployment may avert greater than 10,000 deaths yearly.
ZCCB has additionally expressed curiosity in replicating the mannequin in Kenya and Uganda, the place Duniya plans to launch in early 2026. “The 578 lives saved usually are not simply numbers,” Chalo stated on the launch occasion held on October 20 in Lusaka. “They symbolize moms, youngsters, and households given a second likelihood. This partnership proves that when innovation meets compassion, even essentially the most distant communities can entry life-saving care.”
In July 2025, Chalo instructed TechCabal that his purpose is to make Duniya the most important pharmaceutical distribution community in Africa. The corporate’s newest outcomes recommend that ambition is probably not far-fetched.
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