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Scheduling and Allocation of Pandemic Vaccine Distribution Among Healthcare Centers and High-risk Groups

Fathi, Mohammad Reza | 2022

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 55127 (01)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Industrial Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Eshghi, Kourosh
  7. Abstract:
  8. This study offers a framework to manage mass vaccination programs in response to an outbreak in a city. Compared to previous studies, we consider more operational challenges in the vaccination process; for example, transshipment between vaccinations units and availability of second doses. Our objective function is based on the risk of unvaccinated individuals. Therefore, the model aims at favoring those places in the city where the risk of unvaccinated people is high. Using different kinds of vaccines is another factor that our mathematical model includes. Vaccines are categorized into single-dose and double-dose classes. In this regard, the balanced access to different vaccine types is of great importance, which means vaccination units must contain the same ratio of vaccine types. Our objective function includes this factor as well, improving the fairness in all units as much as possible. One problem here is that balanced access makes our mathematical model non-linear. In response, we propose an approach to divide the main non-linear model into three hierarchical linear models. Consequently, the computational complexity of our problem declines significantly. We consider the Tehran city and the COVID-19 outbreak as a case study. For this purpose, the relevant information is gathered and estimated properly. We analyzed the vaccination process in Tehran for some weeks. Then, the effect of supply and vaccine capacities on vaccination factors is studied by implementing different scenarios. In order to show the validation of our mathematical model, we considered the vaccination process in US. We demonstrated that the model significantly works better than the real data in terms of residual risk reduction and balanced access improvement. Our examinations show that the amount of vaccine-type fairness is acceptable in most cases. However, this amount is too high in other ones, even if the ratio of vaccine types in the central stockpile is similar
  9. Keywords:
  10. Vaccine Supply Chain ; Vaccine Allocation ; Hierarchical Programming ; Mathematical Programming ; Balanced Access ; Hierarchical Mathematical Programming ; Vaccine Distribution ; Epidemic ; COVID-19

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