Lab Supplies Still in Acute Shortage Due to the Pandemic
(Thursday, March 18, 2021)
One year after the pandemic, there is still a critical shortage of laboratory supplies affecting most research activities indirectly. A survey of testing labs by the American Society for Microbiology in January found that supply shortages were affecting almost 50% routine bacterial testing, 35% sexually transmitted diseases, 30% mycobacteria, and almost 20% routine fungal tests. The generally testing volume for CLIA labs was down almost 60%, most of it attributed to the shortage of supplies. Almost 80% of the labs surveyed were facing critical shortage of consumables. Another report last week cited wide-spread shortage of supplies to all research laboratories as well. Shortage of critical consumables such as gloves, gowns, pipettes, pipette tips, sample tubes, centrifuge tubes, bottles, and other laboratory basics have forced labs to recycle the consumables, where possible. The FDA device shortage lists predicts these shortages to continue as long as the pandemic, meaning that laboratory supplies will be hard to find for at least the next several months in the US. Most of these laboratory consumables in the world are sourced from countries in Asia, bulk of it from China, but also from Malaysia (gloves), where the pandemic related closures are slowly being removed. So, presumably once the supply chains are re-energized in the West, the East will be able to restock quickly. The void from the traditional suppliers has created opportunity for newer manufacturers to try to fill the gap with several smaller new vendors popping up on online retailers such as Amazon and eBay, however, lab personnel are wary of changing sources to new, unknown suppliers for critical supplies, and for good reason. Unlike other supplies, vendor for lab consumables go through vigorous validation process and cannot be changed easily. So, most labs would rather wait for the backorders to get filled in rather than change vendors. The unpredictability and temporariness of the disruption of the supply chain has forced the labs to bear the delay rather than changing vendors. The net impact of these supply shortages on the overall state of research and medical testing has yet to be formally calculated but it is not hard to imagine that the negative impact on research will likely last much longer than the pandemic. For now, the best way to pare the long-term loss of research is to keep the experiments on hold and only use the supplies for the most critical activities. Last year was one of the hardest for non-Covid research in general and basic research in particular due to factors beyond the restricted access to the laboratories. And it seems like this would continue for several months. 

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AUTHOR               

 Dr. Mukesh Kumar
​ Founder & CEO, FDAMap

 Email: [email protected]
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