APW – HCV financing

Proposal #050 - APW to carry out a systematic review on HCV financing and conduct a budget impact assessment to advocate for reduction of patient co-payment for HCV treatment

1. Background:

Viet Nam has high burden of hepatitis B and C. WHO and MOH jointly conducted a modelling exercise in 2017 which estimated 7,8 million Vietnamese people living with hepatitis B and nearly one million people living with HCV. However, access to HCV treatment services remain limited despite hepatitis C can be cured in 12 weeks with oral medicines namely Direct Acting Antivirals (DAA).

In 2018, WHO advocated and provided technical advices to MOH to include DAA in the health insurance reimbursement list. As the result, DAAs were included in the Circular 30 which has been effective since 1st January 2019.

Although DAAs has been reimbursed by health insurance, low reimbursement rate (50%) has precluded patients access to this live-saving treatment. Consequently, uptake of HCV treatment through health insurance scheme is low. MOH request WHO to provide further information on HCV treatment financing in order to support MOH in decision making with regard to HCV treatment.

WHO is calling for a capable team to carry out a systematic review on HCV financing in other countries and conduct a budget impact assessment on reduction of HCV treatment co-payment.

2. Work to be performed

Method(s) to carry out the activity

 The consultant will carry out the proposed activities under the overall guidance from the responsible officer of WHO Representative Office in Viet Nam.

 Regular meeting with WHO team to update the progression and to discuss and agree on the technical requirment during implementation.

 Organize the technical working group or expert meeting to get data inputs an review assumptions

 Present and lead the discussion in the technical working group meeting

 Seek advices from department of health insurance if needed

Description of the tasks/process involved in carrying out the activity

Task 1: Systematic review of HCV treatment financing

Activities:

₋ Identify relevant databases; develop inclusion and exclusion criteria, design form for data collection, identification of tool for risk of bias assessment.

₋ Conduct literature search based on consensus criteria

₋ Screening, reviewing and selecting relevant publications (independent reviewer required for this task)

₋ Evaluate quality of the publications

₋ Synthesize and analyze data

₋ Develop report including recommendations

Output/s: Report on systematic review of HCV treatment financing

Task 2: Budget impact assessment

Activities:

₋ Develop model for assessment

₋ Develop model inputs

₋ Develop policy senarios

₋ Collect data inputs including unit cost via expert consultattion, review availbale pubications, ect.

₋ Run the model and review model ouputs on developed policy scenarios

₋ Conduct sensitivity analysis

₋ Analyse the results and develop report including recomendations.

Output/s: Report on the results of budget impact assessment

All the reports need to include the following sections: Background, Objective, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations.

3. Specific requirements

 The bidder should submit the following documents

₋ Technical proposal on systematic review and budget assessment

₋ Financial proposal

₋ Documents to prove the technical capacity to undertake the proposed activities

 Team leader requirement:

-Own university degree in the areas of medicines, public health or social science. Having post-graduate degree or post graduate training in the area of public health, health economics.

-At least 10 years of work experiences in public health policy including health economics

 Team member requirement:

₋ Own university degree in the areas of medicines, public health or social science. Having post-graduate degree or post graduate training in the area of public health, health economics. Experiences in conducting systematic review

₋ At least one member has capacity to conduct Analytic Modelling for Economic Evaluation or Economic Evaluation in Health Technology Assessment

₋ At least 5 years of experiences working in public health policy including health economics

 Language requirements: Demonstration of proficiency in both Vietnamese and English

 Competencies: Not required

4. Place of assignment: within Viet Nam

5. Medical clearance: not applicable

6. Travel: not applicable

6. Budget

Please take note of the following when submitting application:

₋ The contractor will be responsible for paying taxes, if any.

Full proposal with estimation of costs, description of technical team including CVs of team members and supporting documents indicating title proposal and vacancy notice #050 should be received on/or before 5 October 2021 and should be addressed to:

Administrative Officer

World Health Organization UN Building,

304 Kim Ma Street, Hanoi, Viet Nam

wpvnmapplicants@who.int

For further information on this TOR, please contact: wpvnmwr@who.int