**Abstract**

Health commodity supply chains are vital to a well-functioning health system and advancing national and regional health security goals. This study describes impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on these chains, learnings from it and the challenges faced by countries. It also provides futuristic strategic recommendations for the building of the supply chain to manage the impacts and guide pandemic responsiveness. We used the PRISMA guideline for systematic review to collate relevant information from both published and unpublished literature. Out of 622 screened records, 38 were included in the review. Major impacts were innovation, collaboration, increased technology, research and development, increased prices and shortage of health products, depletion of supply chain personnel. Challenges were lack of visibility, coordination, resilience and strategy for pandemics, potential substandard medicines epidemic, travel restrictions and inadequate scientific knowledge. The studies recommended increased local production and resilience of supply chains. The pandemic disrupted national and international supply chain systems of medical devices, essential medicines and pharmaceutical products due to border closures, transportation and international trade restrictions. It however exposed hidden potentials in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is need to develop supply chain strategy for emergencies, increase local production and talent pool for supply chain management particularly in Africa.

**Keywords:** COVID-19, impact, health supply chain, pandemic

#### **1. Introduction**

The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated into the largest health crisis of the 21st Century. According to the COVID-19 situation dashboard of the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus has infected more than 117,132,788 people worldwide to date, and has also killed over 2,600,839 [1]. Epidemiological projections show that the outbreak overwhelmed even well-developed healthcare systems [2]. Many countries have thus imposed pandemic suppression measures such as lockdowns and community quarantines in an effort to stem the progress of the pandemic [3].

Health commodity supply chains are a critical element of a well-functioning health system and a vital input to advancing national and regional health security goals. Strong medicine and health commodity supply chains improve health outcomes and build trust in health systems. Robust supply chains provide critical vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, and other essential health supplies to support communicable disease prevention, control, and response activities [4]. A public health supply chain is a network of interconnected organizations or actors that ensures the availability of health commodities to people who need them. Essentially there are four parts to a supply chain; product manufacturers or the suppliers, distributors, service providers (hospitals, pharmacies, retail medicine sellers) and finally the customers or patients [5].

The coronavirus pandemic is having a clear impact on the supply chains of virtually all manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers. As the world attempts to navigate through this difficult time, most companies are struggling to maintain a steady flow of required goods and services. Whether it is frozen foods and grocery items, or ventilators and masks, medicines or even the services clinic visits etc), the supply chain has been facing multiple obstacles [6]. This disruption is mainly due to COVID 19 pandemic, emanating from China being the second largest economy in the world and the major supplier of inputs for manufacturing companies around the world. Majority of the original equipment manufacturers in China have stopped production [7]. At present, most of the production capacity of these drugs and chemical precursors are in the United States, China and India. Global supply chains have been disrupted due to loss of labor and raw material inputs, creating ripple effects that cross national boundaries [3].

This chapter describes the impacts of the pandemic on public health supply chain, challenges that countries are facing, learnings from the pandemic and provides futuristic strategic recommendations for the building and rebuilding of the supply chains to manage the impact of the pandemic and guide responsiveness towards future pandemics.

## **2. Data collection process**

This chapter is an outcome of a systematic review done by using Purdue libraries online access and e-resources centre 'All Databases" search tool. The search was conducted from June to August, 2020 using the PRISMA checklist. We screened 622 records and reviewed 31 peer reviewed publications and 7 unpublished papers from across the countries.

Literature search was done using keywords like "impact of COVID-19", "effects of COVID-19", "supply chain and COVID-19", "health impacts of COVID-19", "global and public health supply chain during pandemics", "public health and supply chain", and "impact of outbreaks" on databases like Pubmed, ProQuest, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Science Direct (Elsevier). We have excluded literatures that did not report challenges, effect or impact of COVID-19 on health supply chain and as well those not reported in English.

**Figure 1** shows the flow chart of this review.

After careful review of the articles, 38 out of 622 screened publications were selected for inclusion in this study. Extracted data were analyzed and sectioned into positive impact, negative impact, challenges, learnings and recommendations.

All the 38 studies included in the review were conducted between February and August, 2020. Majority of the studies reviewed were conducted globally [8], in Africa [9], Asia [2] and United States [5]. A survey published on March 28 by the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply found that 86% of supply chains are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic while another study by the Institute for Supply Management found that between early March and late March, 2020, the number of companies experiencing supply chain impact rose from 80 to 95% [9].

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

**Figure 1.**

*Flow of information through the different phases of the review.*
