Ensuring the supply of essential commodities in the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic: World health organization

The trends of the ongoing Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have been extremely alarming and a persistent rise in the caseload and the number of deaths has been reported. However, one of the biggest challenges for the health sector has been to ensure the consistent supply of the desired resources and logistics. In order to help the nations and various other stakeholders, the World Health Organization has developed the Essential Supplies Forecasting Tool, which can aid to precisely forecast the requirement of the essential commodities to effectively respond to the disease outbreak. In conclusion, as the ongoing pandemic has resulted in the shortage of essential supplies in multiple settings, the adoption of a tool to estimate the requirements of essential commodities can be looked upon as an effective tool to help the program managers for their preparedness and response activities without compromising the safety of health care workers or the patients.