A Decision Support System to facilitate Vaccination for Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is one of the world's most challenging logistics tasks. This study proposes a decision support system that integrates semaphores to facilitate distribution and vaccination process of COVID-19 vaccines. Two vaccine supplies namely Covishield (CTRI/2020/08/027170) and Covaxin (CTRI/2020/11/028976), were formulated to operationalise a two-dose vaccination program in India. In comparison with other vaccine distribution plans being executed without any prioritisation, such as on a random basis, the plans generated by the proposed decision support system ensure prioritised vaccination for the vulnerable population. Additional approach is taken to arrange the supply of vaccines using counting semaphores which eliminates the problem of people having to wait at vaccination centres and also ensuring the priority of people coming for second dose with additional consideration to aged people.