HHS, DOD coordinate airlift of COVID-19 supplies to the Americas

The U.S. Departments of Defense (DoD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) recently coordinated an emergency airlift of COVID-19 diagnostic testing supplies to the Americas. Agencies involved in the airlift include DoD’s  Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and HHS’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

DoD and HHS stepped in after learning that Copan Diagnostics, Inc., a laboratory and diagnostic supply company located in Italy, were unable to ship 500,000 swabs and sample kits to distributors in the United States due to border closures and flight cancellations in Europe.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar praised the effort, saying “An emergency military delivery of 500,000 collection kits from a manufacturer in Italy… is exactly the kind of public-private cooperation and whole-of-government approach that has characterized the Trump Administration’s response to COVID-19…. Thanks to this quick coordination among agencies and the private sector, private diagnostic companies will have the ability to provide rapid tests for hundreds of thousands of more Americans.”

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HHS, DOD coordinate international airlift of COVID-19 supplies, EIN News Desk