For a trial period of one year, IBM will team up with Zambia’s Ministry of Health to administer a program which provides citizens with lifesaving medicine.

According to Ventures Africa, the program will begin this month and include 200 types of drugs for citizens with lackluster healthcare — drugs that could save the 100,000 lives lost per year to diseases which can be prevented or treated.

“With help from our partners, we have already introduced simple improvements in the medical supply chain that will save the lives of thousands of children across our country by 2015,” Dr. Bonface Fundafunda, Medical Stores Limited (MSL) CEO told Ventures Africa.

Along with MSL, The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), London Business School and the World Bank and Department for International Development (DFID) are partners of the program.

“Zambia is taking a strong action to prevent avoidable deaths by testing and deploying new methods to get drugs to people on time,” John Makumba, operations officer of the World Bank’s Africa Health Unit told Ventures Africa.

IBM will uphold its contribution to the project by implementing technology that will better manage the medical supply chain in the areas of delivery, quantity calculations, inventory and history of usage, the report said. IBM will also aid in updating Zambia’s paper-based medical inventory.