Literature review: The vaccine supply chain

Abstract

Vaccination is one of the most effective ways to prevent and/or control the outbreak of infectious diseases. This medical intervention also brings about many logistical questions. In the past years, the Operations Research/Operations Management community has shown a growing interest in the logistical aspects of vaccination. However, publications on vaccine logistics often focus on one specific logistical aspect. A broader framework is needed so that open research questions can be identified more easily and contributions are not overlooked. In this literature review, we combine the priorities of the World Health Organization for creating a flexible and robust vaccine supply chain with an Operations Research/Operations Management supply chain perspective. We propose a classification for the literature on vaccine logistics to structure this relatively new field, and identify promising research directions. We classify the literature into the following four components: (1) product, (2) production, (3) allocation, and (4) distribution. Within the supply chain classification, we analyze the decision problems for existing outbreaks versus sudden outbreaks and developing countries versus developed countries. We identify unique characteristics of the vaccine supply chain: high uncertainty in both supply and demand; misalignment of objectives and decentralized decision making between supplier, public health organization and end customer; complex political decisions concerning allocation and the crucial importance of deciding and acting in time.

The benefits of combining early aspecific vaccination with later specific vaccination

“…Timing of vaccination is part of a much broader stream of literature on vaccine logistics. For a recent overview we refer to Duijzer, van Jaarsveld, and Dekker (2017).…”

Monitoring Vaccine Cold Chain Model with Coloured Petri Net

“…This requires the establishment of a system to obtain the six supply chain management criteria: the right product, right amount, right condition, right place, right time and the right cost. The evidence indicates problems in seven areas: limitations in supply chain system design, insufficient human resources, Inefficient use of data for management, weak distribution systems, inadequate budgeting and distribution systems and deficient cold chain equipment [2].…”

“…Today, the improvement of the supply chain is one way to ensure that all vaccines stay safe and effective, and reach the children who need them. This requires a system to achieve the six rights of supply-chain management [2]: 6 Rights (product, quantity, condition, place, cost and temperature).…”

“…The vaccine chain is made up of the activities and providers supplying, manufacturing, transport and administration of vaccines at the right time, to the right patient, of good quality [2]. Vaccines are biologically responsive products with their environment.…”

Digital therapeutics for distributed response to global pandemics

“…Complementing the current paradigm, which ranks drugs based on efficacy, our analysis demonstrates the importance of balancing efficacy with distributability, finding that in some cases the latter plays the dominant role in the overall mitigation efficiency.When studied from the angle of its worst-case scenario, surviving a highly infectious pandemic depends on a competition between the infectious pathogen and the therapeutic technology, each racing to reach the majority of the population first. This competition confronts us with several challenges: (i) the inevitable response time R required for us to instigate a mitigation plan places the pathogen at a potentially significant spreading advantage; (ii) while the pathogen reproduces as it spreads 1-3 , a therapy must be manufactured and shipped from one or few sources, whose production and distribution capacity may be limited 4-12 ; (iii) the dissemination of antibiotics or vaccines can be hindered by various external factors, such as geopolitical and socio-economical constraints [13][14][15][16] , which have little effect on the propagation of bacteria and viruses. But even if such factors are eliminated, e.g., assuming that an effective cure already exists, stockpiled in sufficient quantities and benefits from worldwide cooperation in its distribution, it would still have to outrun the pathogen, competing along the same routes of dissemination as the epidemic, i.e.…”