TY - JOUR T1 - COVID-19 Testing Crisis Management Through a Public-Private Partnership in Sindh, Pakistan JF - Global Health: Science and Practice JO - GLOB HEALTH SCI PRACT DO - 10.9745/GHSP-D-21-00308 VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - e2100308 AU - Saba Jamal AU - Javeria Aijaz AU - Najam Shah AU - Fouzia Naseer AU - Maimoona Khan AU - Muzaffar Ali Odho AU - Abdul Bari Khan Y1 - 2022/02/28 UR - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/10/1/e2100308.abstract N2 - The outcomes of the public-private partnership between the Government of Sindh and a private organization include improving access to free of cost, scaling-up access to high-quality coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing with rapid turnaround times in many underserved areas of Sindh, establishing and improving testing systems, and creating a mechanism of coordination and communication.Implementation strategies of such a partnership involve having distinct and complementary roles by both parties, effectively using existing resources, taking concrete steps to improve efficiencies, establishing risk mitigation strategies, introducing measures of quality and safety within testing processes, enabling rapid coordination and communication, as well as ensuring the commitment of the management and staff to handle the crises.Governments should consider pooling resources through effective public-private partnerships to enable rapid implementation of responses to global health security challenges such as that posed by COVID-19 PCR testing crises at the beginning of the pandemic.The successful implementation of the partnership goals provides a model that can be replicated and emulated to enable rapid and effective responses to future global health security challenges in Pakistan and other low- and middle-income countries.As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic spread, meeting the testing needs to control the spread of infection became a major challenge worldwide. In Pakistan, the lack of the requisite infrastructure and training compounded the acute shortage of testing kits and other consumables. Against this backdrop and to urgently improve province-wide access to high-quality COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing with rapid turnaround times, the Government of the Sindh (GoS) province of Pakistan entered into a public-private partnership with Indus Hospital & Health Network (IHHN). Under this partnership, the GoS undertook sample collection and Indus Hospital in Karachi, Sindh, centralized testing. We describe the implementation strategies adopted by the partnership, as well as the challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned. Notably, up to 40% and 22% of total COVID-19 PCRs done in Sindh in the first 2 months of the pandemic, respectively, were performed at Indus Hospital in Karachi, though this percentage declined gradually as other centers caught up with their testing capacities. The rapid scaling up was achieved through a combination of mechanisms and factors including building on preexisting partnerships between the GoS and IHHN, pooling resources and harnessing distinct and complementary roles, relocating existing resources, introducing automation and information technology system changes, establishing risk mitigation strategies, and introducing quality measures within testing processes. The primary outcome of the partnership was rapid province-wide access to quality COVID-19 PCR testing with short turnaround times and at no cost to the patient. Furthermore, implementation of the partnership goals established new mechanisms as well as strengthened existing ones to enable rapid response to the future global health security challenges in Sindh, Pakistan. ER -