*2.1.2 Negative impacts*

Unlike other disruption risks, the epidemic outbreaks start small but scale fast and disperse over many geographic regions causing simultaneous disruptions in supply, demand, and logistics infrastructure [16]. A report published on 21 February 2020, indicated that 94% of the companies listed in the Fortune 1000 list were already facing SC disruptions due to the COVID-19 [17]. Other negative impacts include:

1.Shortage in essential and non-essential medicines, raw materials, medical and pharmaceuticals products: As a result of the surge in the pandemic which led to the inevitable lock down of the economy across affected countries, there has been a noticeable decrease in production and exportation of equipment, raw materials, as well as finished products across different countries [6]. Production supply shortages, transport interruption and the virus containment measures taken by the government was limiting market access, hampering manufacturing activities and nudging the economy towards an inflationary recession which is adversely affecting the manufacturing sector, including that of health products production [7, 16, 18–20]. It has certainly surprised many to discover just how much western countries (in which shortages are particularly prevalent) rely upon global supply chains to obtain medical supplies from China and low-cost economies [21]. However, these networks have poor resilience to global disruptions, with nearly 35% of manufacturers reporting disturbances due to the global Corona virus pandemic [8, 11, 22]. Given the expected increase in COVID-19 cases and global competition for sourcing PPE, many medical facilities currently do not have enough stock and/or reliable resources to meet the anticipated demand [10].

*Global Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Public Health Supply Chains DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97454*


## *2.1.3 Challenges*

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a number of challenges that have led to shortages and price hikes, and could potentially fuel an epidemic of fake and substandard medicines [26]. Findings from the reviewed literature reported the following challenges:


parts of the supply chain in some firms has stopped with little or no alternatives during disruption [7, 29]. ISM also found that 44% of respondents to its survey did not have plans in place to cope with supply disruptions from China [9].

