Supply Chain Issues of PPE Kits
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Supply Chain Issues of PPE Kits
COVID-19 pandemic has not only caused deaths to populations across the globe, but it has also crippled the economy. As COVID-19 cases continue to surge at an unprecedented rate, pressure has continued to pile on PPE supply kits. Healthcare professionals are the frontline workers to fight the pandemic––however, their way of preparedness leaves a lot to be desired. In particular, the U.S. government and other countries across the globe have demonstrated sluggishness in the supply of the PPE kits for healthcare professionals, exposing them to high chances of contracting the virus. This threat of contracting the virus particularly by healthcare professionals is a concern and needs to be addressed. Healthcare stakeholders, government officials, researchers and other concerned officials are at crossroads to improve the supply of PPE’s. This paper reveals that the manufacturing and supply of PPE’s logistics have been impeded by the COVID-19 guidelines. A literature review on the topic will help in demonstrating how the pandemic itself has inherently impeded manufacturing and supply chain logistics.
Literature Review
A review of the literature on the topic presents the supply chain logistics of PPE’s as a demanding process. the proposed guidelines to tame the spread of the Virus have adversely affected operations of many sectors, particularly transport. Ranging from transport whether, in the air, water, by foot or land, COVID-19 continues to affect them unsparingly. Here, according to Lin et al., (2020), COVID-19 guidelines as per the healthcare professionals require people to keep distance, wear a mask, wash hands or sanitize, to quarantine especially when diagnosed with symptoms and among other measures. In a bid to adhere to these guidelines, lockdowns have been imposed on many countries bringing transport sector to a stand still––delivery of products including PPE’s kits to healthcare facilities has also been hindered. While these guidelines affect transportation constraining the delivery of PPE’s to hospitals, Lin et al., (2020) developed ways to assist the U.S. government to deliver PPE’s kits to healthcare facilities.
They suggested that the U.S should employ a multi-periodic stochastic programming model as it helps in inventory costing especially because the ventilator machine is expensive. Under this model, four different types of demand scenarios were analyzed in regard to the spread of the infectious disease rate. Büyüktahtakın, des-Bordes, and Kıbış (2018) noted that a mixed-integer programming model was effective in combating the spread of Ebola Virus infectious diseases in West African countries. In this case, the approach was successful after considering issues that pertained to logistics by having an over multi-period plan horizon (Büyüktahtakın, des-Bordes, and Kıbış, 2018). It was established that the approach minimized infections within the constrained budget. This idea is supported by Liu et al. (2019) who highlighted that mixed-integer and non-linear model programming model that helped to manage the spread of the infectious disease referred to as Swine flu (H1N1) through the optimum allocation of the emergency budget in per the infected individuals and the available capacity.
The fourth application is noted in the panorama global outbreak. Zlojutro, Rey, and Gardner (2019) also introduced decision support by developing further on a stochastic model to the network flow of multi-commodity and passenger movement through air travel that is attributable to the spread of the virus. On the contrary, these studies have been criticized as unreliable. Researchers are accused of relying on information that is manipulated (Badnjević et al., 2020). For instance, air travel has lots of needs allocation as the outbreak control measures resources are guaranteed. This inconsistency renders the models unreliable inviting further research as far as the U.S. grapple with finding ways to curb the spread of the COVID-19 cases increase.
With this unequivocal agreement, numerous researchers and concepts are still developing as far as the supply chain of PPE kits is concerned. For instance, some researchers have noted that the Defense Production Act is employed by the U.S. president to ensure that private companies are protected against any laws that may be imposed on them to render their production illegal. At this point, the PPE’s will be guaranteed among healthcare professionals. Therefore, adopting this concept ensures that PPE’s are produced in plenty to help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
In conclusion, this paper aimed to suggest ways that can be used to improve the supply of PPE kits in a bid to tame the surging cases in the spread of Covid-19. Indeed, COVID-19 has affected the economy of the U.S. and other countries across the globe. The guidelines that are provided as a way to curb the spread of the disease adversely constrain the delivery of PPE kits. Apart from social distancing, quarantining, wearing a mask, washing hands or sanitizing, some countries have gone further to institute lockdown measures. Travelling from one country to another has been restricted or to some point banned to tame the spread of the Disease. Either way, these activities affect the supply chain and in the end adversely affecting the delivery of PPE kits constraining the achievement of healthcare goals as far as taming COVID-19 is concerned. However, this paper reviewed existing literature that should be employed by the US as some researchers had a sense of relevance in their model as far as improving the supply chain is concerned.
References
Badnjević, A., Pokvić, L. G., Džemić, Z., & Bečić, F. (2020). Risks of emergency use authorizations for medical products during outbreak situations: a COVID-19 case study. BioMedical Engineering OnLine, 19(1), 1-14.
Büyüktahtakın, E, Emmanueldes,B, and Eyyüb Y.K., (2018). “A New Epidemics–Logistics Model: Insights Into Controlling the Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa.” European Journal of Operational Research 265 (3): 1046–1063
Lin, Q, Shi, Z, Daozhou, G., Yijun, L, Shu,Y., Salihu, S. Musa, M., Wang, et al. (2020). “A Conceptual Model for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) the Outbreak in Wuhan, China with Individual Reaction and Governmental Action.” International Journal of Infectious Diseases 93: 211–216
Liu, M, XifenXu, J, and Ding, Z., ( 2019). “Integrated Planning for Public Health Emergencies: A Modified Model for Controlling H1N1 Pandemic.” Journal of the Operational Research Society 71 (5): 748–761
Zlojutro, A, David, R, & Lauren G., (2019).“A Decision-Support Framework to Optimize Border Control for Global the Outbreak Mitigation.” Scientific Reports 9: 2216.