A Coca-Cola truck rumbled down the road, ferrying its bubbly, sugary cargo to shops and kiosks in the northern part of the country around the edge of Kilimanjaro National Park. The one thing you can be sure of finding in any far-flung corner of Tanzania is a bottle of Coke. A new pilot program—the first of its kind—aims to make anti-retroviral drugs as easily accessible as a bottle of soda by tapping into Coca-Cola's established delivery network throughout Tanzania.
Tanzania's government supply-chain agency, the Medical Stores Department, currently distributes anti-retrovirals, malaria medication, and other drugs to 500 points around Tanzania, but President Jakaya Kikwete wants medicine taken to the doorsteps of all of the country's 5,000 health facilities. Widening the distribution net so broadly could prove a daunting task, since Tanzania's current distribution system is already overtaxed, and even the best health facilities have trouble keeping all the necessary medicines in stock.
Enter Coca-Cola. The beverage giant, which opened its first bottling plant in Tanzania in 1952, has spent decades finding the most efficient way to reach distant villages and adapting to changing roadway conditions.
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