Leveraging data-driven decision-making for medicine supply chain resilience during health crisis

The study was conducted to identify medicine and its therapeutic segments which had suffered sourcing and stockout challenges at the grass-root level during the pandemic time. An exploratory and descriptive study was conducted using primary data from sampled private retail pharmacy business stores. Factors like the name of the medicine, their therapeutic segment, geographical location, and the timeline of the events, were captured to analyse drug shortage along. The study indicated an acute shortage of medicine including antibiotics, antiviral, and supplements during the pandemic, due to disruption in the medicine supply. There was a high correlation between the incidence of infection cases and the drug shortage, which suggests the rise in demand for essential medicine especially antibiotics and supplements following the rise in the cases. The study provides a recommendation to pharmaceutical organisations, suppliers, and policymakers, to effectively handle sourcing and supplies to counter stockout situations.