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Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global health supply chains including manufacturing, storage, and delivery of essential medicines, testing kits, personal protective equipment, and laboratory reagents. We sought to document how pandemic impacted the procurement, prices, and supply cha...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Global Health: Science and Practice
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10615236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37903588 http://dx.doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00424 |
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author | Yemeke, Tatenda T. Umaru, Farouk A. Ferrand, Rashida A. Ozawa, Sachiko |
author_facet | Yemeke, Tatenda T. Umaru, Farouk A. Ferrand, Rashida A. Ozawa, Sachiko |
author_sort | Yemeke, Tatenda T. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global health supply chains including manufacturing, storage, and delivery of essential medicines, testing kits, personal protective equipment, and laboratory reagents. We sought to document how pandemic impacted the procurement, prices, and supply chain of medical products in Zimbabwe. METHODS: We conducted semistructured in-depth key informant interviews with 36 health system stakeholders in Zimbabwe involved in medicine procurement. Respondents included pharmacists, regulatory officers, and procurement and supply chain management professionals from public and private sectors. RESULTS: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents described experiencing long-standing resource constraints, medicine shortages, foreign currency shortages, and supply chain inefficiencies. The pandemic exacerbated this situation due to supply constraints, export restrictions, medicine shortages, and movement restrictions that disrupted logistical and stock management systems. Competitive bidding and tendering processes experienced reduced participation by international suppliers. Significant price increases were initially observed among internationally shipped medicines and for personal protective equipment to cover additional freight costs. COVID-19 pandemic impacts were moderated by reduced patient demand and lower health services utilization, resulting in fewer supply shocks and less price volatility. Further, health system adaptations such as switching treatment regimens, modifying dispensing schedules based on stock availability, redistributing stock of medicines among facilities, and new service delivery models such as integrated outreach services helped ensure continued patient access to medicines. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the need for policies that ensure continuity in access to health services and medical products, even during a pandemic, by avoiding blanket restrictions on medical product exports and imports. Pooled procurement, especially at regional and global levels, with long-term service agreements may help achieve greater resiliency to supply and price shocks from supply chain disruptions. Interventions across manufacturing, trade, and regulatory policy and service delivery models are also needed for supply chain resiliency. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10615236 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Global Health: Science and Practice |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106152362023-10-31 Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency Yemeke, Tatenda T. Umaru, Farouk A. Ferrand, Rashida A. Ozawa, Sachiko Glob Health Sci Pract Original Article BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global health supply chains including manufacturing, storage, and delivery of essential medicines, testing kits, personal protective equipment, and laboratory reagents. We sought to document how pandemic impacted the procurement, prices, and supply chain of medical products in Zimbabwe. METHODS: We conducted semistructured in-depth key informant interviews with 36 health system stakeholders in Zimbabwe involved in medicine procurement. Respondents included pharmacists, regulatory officers, and procurement and supply chain management professionals from public and private sectors. RESULTS: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents described experiencing long-standing resource constraints, medicine shortages, foreign currency shortages, and supply chain inefficiencies. The pandemic exacerbated this situation due to supply constraints, export restrictions, medicine shortages, and movement restrictions that disrupted logistical and stock management systems. Competitive bidding and tendering processes experienced reduced participation by international suppliers. Significant price increases were initially observed among internationally shipped medicines and for personal protective equipment to cover additional freight costs. COVID-19 pandemic impacts were moderated by reduced patient demand and lower health services utilization, resulting in fewer supply shocks and less price volatility. Further, health system adaptations such as switching treatment regimens, modifying dispensing schedules based on stock availability, redistributing stock of medicines among facilities, and new service delivery models such as integrated outreach services helped ensure continued patient access to medicines. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the need for policies that ensure continuity in access to health services and medical products, even during a pandemic, by avoiding blanket restrictions on medical product exports and imports. Pooled procurement, especially at regional and global levels, with long-term service agreements may help achieve greater resiliency to supply and price shocks from supply chain disruptions. Interventions across manufacturing, trade, and regulatory policy and service delivery models are also needed for supply chain resiliency. Global Health: Science and Practice 2023-10-30 /pmc/articles/PMC10615236/ /pubmed/37903588 http://dx.doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00424 Text en © Yemeke et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly cited. To view a copy of the license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. When linking to this article, please use the following permanent link: https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00424 |
spellingShingle | Original Article Yemeke, Tatenda T. Umaru, Farouk A. Ferrand, Rashida A. Ozawa, Sachiko Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency |
title | Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency |
title_full | Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency |
title_fullStr | Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency |
title_full_unstemmed | Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency |
title_short | Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Product Procurement, Prices, and Supply Chain in Zimbabwe: Lessons for Supply Chain Resiliency |
title_sort | impact of the covid-19 pandemic on medical product procurement, prices, and supply chain in zimbabwe: lessons for supply chain resiliency |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10615236/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37903588 http://dx.doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00424 |
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