Understanding the building blocks of pandemic resilience

It has been well over a year since the world woke up to the news of the new SARS-COV-2 virus. What followed was the largest global health crisis in 100 years, with profound disruptions to our lives.  

Managing a pandemic is a combination of prevention, monitoring, and countermeasures. Logistics and supply chain management has played a vital role right from the start, ensuring the infrastructure and processes are in place to distribute the tools the world needs to fight COVID-19. From personal protective equipment (PPE) in the early months of the pandemic to the global vaccination campaign at this crucial moment in the crisis, each step forward in this race has come with its own set of challenges.

Last year, we took a close look at the medical supply chain and the vulnerabilities the pandemic had exposed. In our white paper, Delivering Pandemic Resilience, we identified the critical logistics and supply chain challenges that had emerged early in the pandemic and suggested ways to tackle them and prepare for the next public health emergency. Back then, vaccines were still being developed, and the main pain point was PPE. Today, vaccine distribution is our most critical asset in the race against the virus.

The global response to COVID-19 has called the world’s pandemic preparedness into question. It has exposed how critical collaboration and partnerships are, and new forms of both are emerging. While many world leaders call for an international pandemic treaty, global economic and health leaders are urging wealthy nations to pledge $50 billion toward global vaccination efforts. The World Health Summit has declared “Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons from COVID-19” a central topic in 2021. According to the organizers, “now we must build with urgency on experiences made.”

Building on our findings in 2020 and more recent experience, we’ve revisited the topic of pandemic resilience and prepared an update. Since the global vaccination campaign began, we have distributed more than 300 million vaccine doses to over 140 countries. We have joined forces with governments and manufacturers to optimize processes and deliver as quickly and efficiently as possible. With the world closing the gap in the race toward normalcy, it was time to step back again and take stock of lessons learned. Our update, Revisiting Pandemic Resilience, reminds us what the global community has achieved so far in the race against the virus, how we can best manage the crisis and reach the finish line, and how we can prepare for the next pandemic.

Out of the starting blocks and closing the gap

The past year has been full of challenges. The novel coronavirus got off to a sizable head start, but we are gaining speed and closing the gap. In our pandemic resilience update, we start by looking at some of the major milestones the global community has achieved that have made it even possible to be in the position we are today.

First off, vaccines were developed in about nine months – five times faster than any other in history. This was driven in part by global cooperation and data sharing among scientists as well as seamless collaboration between researchers and regulators.

Total global vaccine production capacity has quadrupled, with more than 100 vaccine production facilities going online worldwide. Here again, unparalleled international collaboration and industry partnerships have fueled the rapid ramp-up.

Complex vaccine supply chains were set up in just six months in some cases, which is three times faster than a typical timeline. Despite the breakneck speed, these supply chains met unprecedented cold-chain requirements, prevented delays and damages, and achieved factory-to-arm times as fast as two days.

Other achievements are both promising and reassuring: the rapid response to surging demand for PPE and other supplies demonstrates resilience; innovative multilateral action to ensure global access to vaccines is a sign of international collaboration and solidarity; the two new vaccine platforms that emerged have the potential to tackle diseases beyond COVID-19; and large-scale research on therapeutics is underway. The global community has come together to get us through this crisis.

As this public health crisis has shown, institutionalizing preparedness in the public health space, especially around containment and countermeasures, can save lives. Therefore, we believe that the sum of these measures will help the public sector and health service providers ensure systematic preparedness and efficient response times for public health emergencies in the future. 

Published: Juni 2021