The COVID-19 pandemic has created acute disruptions to public health supply chains, revealing underlying vulnerabilities in the global supply ecosystem and increasing uncertainty in both the supply and demand of life-saving SRH medicines and products, including contraceptives. In order to better understand what worked well and what did not during this time, the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (RHSC) engaged JSI to conduct an assessment of SRH supply chains during COVID-19.
The final report from this assessment titled Building Resilient Sexual And Reproductive Health Supply Chains During COVID-19 And Beyond: Community Roadmap for Action and Technical Findings was recently made publicly available and results were presented at the RHSC annual meeting (recording is below).
Findings suggest that disruptions were most acute in the early months of the pandemic and that supply chains largely adapted to new constraints later in 2020. Disruptions were most severe in freight and manufacturing sectors, and the pandemic response required rapid policy changes and adaptations to operations. The final section of the report includes recommendations for action, both to accelerate the adoption of practices that worked well in 2020 and to address those disruptions or weaknesses that pose the greatest threat to widespread SRH product availability.
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