A General Framework for Epidemic Logistics Management

Abstract

Human history is full of epidemic outbreaks that occur on a regular basis. The past epidemics have resulted in millions of deaths and economic recessions. With the increasing frequency of human-induced epidemics in recent years, effective and efficient epidemic logistics management has become vital for successfully containing the spread of the disease as well as preventing societal disruption, avoiding catastrophic human loss, and a substantial economic burden. However, there is a lack of a systematic study on this topic, let alone an in-depth understanding of logistics that are related to the epidemic. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying someco-related concepts that are relevant to epidemic logistics, i.e., humanitarian logistics, and emergency logistics. As none of these existing concepts cover the particularities of an epidemic nor they have managed to capture the characteristics of the logistics in the context of epidemics, a new definition of epidemic logistics is proposed. This definition is then followed by an analysis ofthe challenges and needs for effective and efficient management of epidemic logistics. This leads to ourproposal fora general framework that defines all the essential elements of an epidemic logistics system with a high level of sustainability, resilience, and alignment.This framework also provides a baseline that enables systematic management of logistics operations before, during,and after epidemics. Several research directions and suggestions are provided for follow-up studies.