24 Associations Urge Passage Of PREVENT Pandemics Act
Bipartisan legislation hailed as vital reform to improve medical supply chain
Alexandria, VA, August 5, 2022 – A new letter signed by 24 national healthcare organizations and trade associations is urging Congress to pass the PREVENT Pandemics Act this year. The diverse group of signatories represents a wide range of healthcare stakeholders including distributors, physicians, hospitals, public health professionals, infectious disease professionals, scientists, and other stakeholders.
The letter states: “The PREVENT Pandemics Act would improve our testing and treatment capabilities and address the disparities which make public healthcare challenges harder on vulnerable populations. We appreciate the legislation’s supply chain provisions that provide the Strategic National Stockpile with additional flexibility to partner with distributors and manufacturers. … Enacting the PREVENT Pandemics Act will better equip our nation with the tools to combat future public health challenges and threats and bring us one step closer to filling the gaps in our future pandemic response.”
The full letter is available here.
“HIDA was pleased to lead this effort to rally industry to support the PREVENT Pandemics Act,” said HIDA President and CEO Matthew J. Rowan. “COVID – and now monkeypox – demonstrate that pandemics can come from anywhere at any time. Congress needs to build on the lessons of the last pandemic in order to prepare for the next one.”
The PREVENT Pandemics Act – introduced by Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Richard Burr (R-NC) – is a comprehensive, bipartisan legislative effort to apply lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen medical supply chains and public health preparedness. HIDA has engaged extensively with Senators Murray and Burr, as well as senior staff from the Senate HELP Committee throughout the development of the bill. The PREVENT Pandemics Act includes provisions to create a distributor-based readiness model, authorizing the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to contract with medical products distributors to manage a surge capacity of pandemic supplies.
Signatories to the letter are as follows:
- AIDS United
- American Academy of Family Physicians
- American College of Clinical Pharmacy
- American Industrial Hygiene Association
- American Mosquito Control Association
- American Society for Microbiology
- American Society for Virology
- American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
- Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology
- BIO: Biotechnology Innovation Organization
- Biophysical Society
- College of American Pathologists
- Entomological Society of America
- Health Industry Distributors Association
- HIV Medicine Association
- Infectious Diseases Society of America
- National Rural Health Association
- Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society
- Physician Assistant Education Association
- Research!America
- Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America
- Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists
- The Gerontological Society of America
- Vector-Borne Disease Network
About HIDA
HIDA is the industry trade association representing 118 distribution companies operating 500+ healthcare distribution centers across the care continuum nationwide. HIDA members deliver healthcare products and supplies, manage logistics, and offer customer services to virtually every healthcare provider. In 2020, they reliably delivered 51 billion units of PPE “the last mile” to providers. Visit HIDA.org.