When stockpiling for pandemic preparedness, you can choose to prepare a large stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) but end up needing to throw away the expired ones, or you can choose to stockpile a small amount of PPEs but end up needing to worry about shortages. When it comes to PPE stockpile policy for pandemic preparedness, a government is always facing a difficult choice. In order to solve the dilemma, Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC held a symposium on "How to Strengthen National Capacities for Pandemic Preparedness and Establish the Public–Private Partnerships” on December 25, 2008. Through a creative and in-depth discussion, the panel of experts attending the symposium reached consensus in the following two aspects. First, to improve the feasibility of storage circulation between government and private sectors, the public-private partnership should be strengthened, and the restriction of Government Procurement Act should be loosened. Second, the integration of PPE stockpile in Asia-Pacific region will be one of the future directions for policy development.

The symposium was co-organized by Taiwan CDC and the Supply Chain and Logistics Laboratory of Soochow University, which brought together suppliers, logistics service providers, scholars, and administrators to examine the condition of the national PPE stockpile. The aim of this symposium is to foster the exchange of experience between important stakeholders, promote the argument over strategies for the circulation of PPE stockpiles for pandemic preparedness, and discuss the design of the supply chain in the future.

To avoid mask buying panic that occurred during the SARS period from happening again, the Department of Health (DOH) has set up several PPE stockpiles to Taiwan CDC, all the local health authorities, and most of the medical institutes. In addition, to ensure sufficient PPE supply that will meet the demand for front line workers in health care, the use of 4 kinds of PPE, including N95 respirators, surgical masks, flat masks and protective clothing, has been monitored. Taiwan CDC indicated that the amount of regular consumption for some PPE items is fairly low during a non-emergency period. However, due to limited market scale in occupational safety, it is hard to use up these stockpiles before they expire. Hence, participating stockpile logistics units and experts are more concerned with working out resolution that can make a balance between excess stockpile and insufficient supply through integrating the domestic and international supply chains.

In order to prepare for an upcoming influenza pandemic and other large-scale public health emergencies, many countries have begun stockpiling large amounts of PPE. In Taiwan, the entire health system has stockpiled about 2 millions N95 respirators, nearly equal to 9% of the total population, and which is similar to Australia’s stockpile (10%). Although some countries, including the United States (33%), and Singapore (43%), have actually stockpiled far more PPEs than Taiwan, through accurate demand prediction, well-designed stockpiling, and acquire more supplements through emergent procurement, we can make up for insufficient supply at the beginning of pandemic.