COVID-19 Supply Chain Research Group - MIA Task Force

COVID-19 caused immediate problems for medicine supply worldwide and exposed the full-scale vulnerability of these supply chains. The pressure on supply chains was not limited to infection control equipment, tests or ventilators. It spread to other critical goods, including generic drugs. Medicine shortages were already a growing global problem in normal times before the pandemic. Now we see increased interest from the authorities in the vulnerabilities and the level of preparedness. But the many stakeholders have different goals and incentives when it comes to the focus on costs, quality, service and sustainable solutions. The supply chains are complex with many actors involved, they are global and vulnerable due to specialization and 'slimming' (few buffers) in the chains and moving production to low-cost countries. The project COVID-19 MIA Task Force has studied how the corona virus affected the chains and evaluated the effects of a number of measures to improve security of supply. We have studied the availability of paracetamol in seven countries, medicines for chronic disease and vaccination in Ethiopia, ventilators in three European countries and testing equipment for COVID-19 in Norway. None of the countries experienced a shortage of paracetamol and our study indicates how this was avoided through the decision-makers' rapid adjustment to a new situation when the pandemic hit. Ethiopia experienced more shortages except for paracetamol. One reason for this may be their own production of this medicine, and we are looking into this more closely now. Much data was collected despite the challenges of the pandemic and the conflict in Ethiopia. In addition, we have published a conceptual study of the importance of collaboration on resources in managing risk in supply chains and an empirical study of how MSF handled its response to the pandemic through modularization and standardization. The project has combined knowledge from supply chain management (SCM) with public global health and pharmacy, to contribute data decision support and tools to the decision makers. Together with partners from the Institute of Public Health (FHI), Jimma University, Institute of Health (JUIH) and St. Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC) in Ethiopia, BI Business School takes a systems approach to these supply chains. This means that we use tools that can simulate and contribute to the understanding of these complex systems and both the direct and indirect consequences of measures. All the sub-projects were carried out in collaboration between two or more partners, and combined different research methods and qualitative and quantitative data with modeling such as simulation and optimization. Pedagogical tools have been developed based on the results and the analytical models to be used in teaching and discussion with stakeholders. The results include many seminars, workshops, presentations and reports, podcasts and blogs, popularized articles, 3 master theses and tools in addition to six peer-reviewed articles. We develop modules for master's education in pharmacy. In total, the project has 56 results, most publicly available, see The MIA Project | BI.