Assessment of the Impact of Covid-19 on the Supply Chain of Essential Health Commodities in Tanzania

Abstract

Background: Essential medicines are those drugs that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of the population. In Tanzania the supply chain of essential health commodities largely depends on imported finished products and Raw materials. As a result of the surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the inevitable lockdown of the economy across affected countries, there has been a noticeable decrease in production and exportation of raw materials as well as finished health products across different countries. So far it is not known how the pandemic has affected the supply chain of essential health commodities in Tanzania. Objective: To assess the impact of Covid-19 on the supply chain of essential health commodities in Tanzania. Methodology: This retrospective register-based study was conducted at TMDA, to asses price changes before and during COVID-19. Cross sectional study was conducted at selected retail pharmacies to assess for the availability, price changes and customer’s purchasing pattern of essential health commodities. Qualitative interview of key informants from pharmaceutical industries and private importers of health commodities was done using open ended questions. The longitudinal data and quantitative interview data analysis were performed for T- Test using SPSS version 20 and Microsoft Excel®, Microsoft Corporation 2019 respectively. The recorded interviews were analyzed for themes (thematic analysis) of the impacts of COVID 19 on the supply chain of essential commodities in Tanzania. Results: Quantitative interview consisted of two hundred forty-two participants, among those 89.3% agreed that COVID-19 reduced the availability of health commodities. Different ways through which the pandemic reduced the availability included increase in demand, increase in price as well as reduced production of health commodities. Fifty one percent (51%) of participants disagreed that COVID-19 reduced pharmacy business while 61% said that customers’ ability to purchase health commodities during the pandemic was not affected (not reduced). Products that were in high demand included medicines like Azithromycin, Vitamin C, Multivitamin, Dexamethasone, Ivermectin, Aspirin and Heparin. Qualitative results from pharmaceutical importers showed reduced production of health commodities and increased demand of some health commodities reduced their availability Transportation factors, port clearance issues and withholding stocks of health commodities also were found to increase the price of imported health commodities. While shortage of workforce in manufacturing plants, customs factors and scarcity of raw materials increased the lead time of imported health commodities and pharmaceutical raw materials. Conclusion: Findings of this study show that COVID-19 impacted the supply of essential health commodities by reducing availability, increasing price and lead time of imported health commodities and pharmaceutical raw materials, further the study found changes in purchasing pattern of essential health commodities where for some commodities demand was increased dramatically while their supply decreased.