The shortage of laboratory supplies hits amid the global pandemic

Scientists around the world are scrambling to secure basic supplies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is increasing the demand for test materials while disrupting manufacturing and distribution channels.

Lack of gloves, plastic tips for pipettes, centrifuge tubes and other basic principles in laboratories have caused projects to slow down or even stop, but researchers are adjusting. “We walked around and found solutions,” says Sebastian Rowe, a PhD student in chemical biology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration shortage list, the shortages of gloves, micropipettes, pipette tips and other supplies are expected to last for the “duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency”.

Border closures, quarantines and a drastic reduction in shipping by sea and air have delayed the delivery of many types of supplies and equipment, including some not directly related to the treatment or testing of COVID-19.

In the UK, the national health service is warning about providing problems with products, including gloves, pipette tips and refrigerators. In the case of one type of surgical glove, the shortage is reduced to an “increased demand during recent months, production shortages and delays in packaging or sterilization”.

According to a report by the US International Trade Commission in December, global demand for gloves exceeded 200 billion by the end of 2020. In a demonstration of the far-reaching effects of the pandemic, one of the largest gloves manufacturers in the world The Malaysian company Top Glove, based in Shah Alam, had to temporarily close some of its factories due to an outbreak of COVID-19 among workers .

Animal shortages

Some laboratories also report disruptions in the supply of laboratory animals. American pharmaceutical companies in particular are scrambling to find rhesus monkeys. The shortage, caused by the increase in demand for vaccination of vaccines and a ban on the transport of wild animals from China, has led to some research projects coming to a halt and inspiring a reserve supply of animals to maintain.

Nasco Education, a science and education company in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, is phasing out sales of live African frogs (Xenopus), which is used in the study of developmental biology. Company spokesperson Lori Jacoby explains that orders dropped during locks, making it less economically feasible to raise the frogs. The company does not intend to return to the live frog business, but will continue to sell the animals as long as its current stock lasts, which she says could take several months.

Rowe says a shortage of products has been a problem since he returned to the lab in June 2020, after a few months of lockdown. The lack of stock has changed the way the laboratory conducts experiments. Before a researcher walks through boxes of pipette tips, he can first spend an extra day doing a pilot test to see if the test is likely to work. “You have to be better at planning your experiments,” Rowe says.

Victoria Forster, a cancer researcher at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, got into trouble in September when she could not find the right pipette tips or plastic plates for emerging stem cell experiments. As she explains, only certain tips will fit in certain pipettes, making it difficult to find alternatives. The wait for supplies made her sit back for about six weeks, she says. ‘I worked in the UK and Canada, and [before the pandemic] I have never had to wait more than a few days for such things, ”she says. “I could not start my experiment until I knew I had everything I needed.”

Household supplies

Supply shortages have also hit laboratories in Africa, says Evelyn Gitau, director of research capacity building at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi. In some cases, researchers have tried to come up with alternative products, often with poor results. “There was an increase in substandard laboratory equipment and consumables in the laboratory,” she says. “It’s counterproductive. If you were going to send me a pipette that was not fit for purpose, you would just as well have canceled the whole experiment I did. ‘

The collapse of the scientific supply chain in African countries underscores the danger of relying on equipment outside the continent for equipment, Gitau said. If Kenya could improve its own manufacturing standards, she says, researchers there would not have to depend on supplies from the United States or Europe. “If I work with a virus now, I would not wear a mask from Kenya,” she says. “Our Bureau of Standards is not doing the work it needs to do, so we need to start printing.”

The supply crisis could be an opportunity for countries to rethink their dependence on foreign suppliers, Gitau says. She suggests that Kenya can start by making use of abundant local resources. “We have potatoes rotting in the field that can be used to make filter paper,” she says.

The issue of foreign dependence is not limited to Africa. The U.S. International Trade Commission notes that the United States imports almost all of its medical and surgical gloves, mostly from Malaysia. Imports of gloves to the United States increased by 17% from January to September 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, but it was not nearly enough to meet the demand. Similarly, in 2020, the United States had to significantly increase the import of filtered plastic pipettes because the only domestic supplier, Porex in Newnan, Georgia, could not meet the demand.

Due to the shortages, laboratories are adopting a ‘reduction, reuse and recycling’ ethos. Under the right conditions, centrifuge tubes can be reused, Rowe says. A tube containing cellular samples can be cleaned with enough scrub to contain a buffer. And lab workers use gloves for a few days for non-sterile work. If they have to exchange for sterile gloves for a specific experiment, they will often return to the old pair when they are done, he says.

While shortages continue, laboratories work together. “Emails are constantly circulating,” Forster says. ‘Does anyone have any of this? Any of this? ‘She managed to get some much-needed pipette tips by swapping supplies with another researcher in Toronto. “It was a beautiful camaraderie,” she says.