Health planners charged with the task of building or at least maintaining the health of populations within low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have to find ways of providing steady, predictable supplies of health commodities for unpredictable demands for healthcare and health. To address this issue, this paper emphasizes a focus on aggregate commodity security defined as the continuous interrupted supply of health commodities belonging to all therapeutic categories and not just a selected subset. Given this focus, the paper identifies logistics systems comprising of a set of logistics activities as the machinery for assuring aggregate commodity security. Steady reliable supplies of health commodities, whenever and wherever they are needed, however, means looking beyond logistics systems. Health planners must ask whether there is a healthy supplier base for the commodities needed. The paper notes that a secure supply of health commodities in any LMIC, will remain an illusion without functional logistics systems supported by a healthy supplier base.

负责建设或至少维持低收入和中等收入国家 (LMIC) 人口健康的卫生规划人员必须找到方法，为不可预测的医疗保健和健康需求提供稳定、可预测的卫生商品供应。为了解决这个问题，本文强调了对总体商品安全的关注，该安全被定义为属于所有治疗类别的健康商品的持续中断供应，而不仅仅是选定的子集。鉴于这一重点，本文将由一系列物流活动组成的物流系统确定为确保总体商品安全的机制。然而，无论何时何地都需要稳定可靠的卫生商品供应，这意味着要超越物流系统。健康规划者必须询问是否有所需商品的健康供应商基础。该文件指出，如果没有健康的供应商基础支持的功能性物流系统，任何中低收入国家的健康商品安全供应将仍然是一种幻想。