Background:

The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly worldwide, and the outbreak of the disease was designated a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Such outbreaks would certainly be catastrophic for some of the best-ranked health systems and would be more catastrophic in countries with more fragile health systems. Accordingly, the World Health Organization and other organizations have been appealing to donor countries to support a rapid response plan. The primary objectives of this response plan are to appeal for funds from donors and to distribute these funds to the most affected countries based on the requirements.

Methods:

In this study, we developed a mathematical model to provide initial insights into the efficient and equitable distribution of urgent funds to high-priority countries. Three phases were proposed for the construction of this mathematical model. In the first phase, the final epidemic sizes in all the target countries were predicted by using three epidemiological models. In the second phase, the urgent requirements for each country were estimated in parallel with the estimates issued by the humanitarian response plan, based on the size of the epidemic and several other factors. In the third and final phase, a multi-objective optimization model was proposed. The first objective was to maximize the funds from donors to cover all the requirements. The second objective was to minimize the unmet demands by ensuring a fair distribution of the urgent funds based on the requirements of the target countries.

Results:

Predictions of the basic reproduction numbers and the final epidemic sizes were calculated for all target countries. The urgent requirements were estimated, and the requirements issued by the humanitarian response plan for all target countries were also considered. Moreover, a proposed response plan for the distribution network was demonstrated. Donors must provide urgent funds exceeding US$ 2,608,084,209 to cover at least 40 % of each target country’s requirements. Overall, results demonstrate the importance of an urgent and fair distribution of funds to the target countries to overcome the outbreak of COVID-19.

Conclusions:

Rapid responses by donor countries to humanitarian appeals will facilitate the immediate and fair distribution of relief supplies to the poorest countries. This distribution may help to support health systems, restrain the spread of COVID-19, and prevent an unlimited catastrophe.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 全球人道主义响应计划：高优先级国家的最佳分配模型

背景：

2019 年新型冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 已在全球范围内迅速传播，该病的爆发被世界卫生组织指定为全球大流行病。这样的爆发对于一些排名最好的卫生系统来说肯定是灾难性的，并且在卫生系统更脆弱的国家会更具灾难性。因此，世界卫生组织和其他组织一直呼吁捐助国支持一项快速反应计划。该应对计划的主要目标是呼吁捐助者提供资金，并根据需要将这些资金分配给受影响最严重的国家。

方法：

在这项研究中，我们开发了一个数学模型，以初步了解紧急资金向高优先级国家的高效和公平分配。该数学模型的构建提出了三个阶段。第一阶段，使用三种流行病学模型预测所有目标国家的最终流行规模。在第二阶段，根据流行病的规模和其他几个因素，与人道主义应急计划发布的估计数同时估计每个国家的紧急需求。在第三个也是最后一个阶段，提出了一个多目标优化模型。第一个目标是最大限度地利用捐助者的资金来满足所有需求。

结果：

计算了所有目标国家的基本再生数和最终流行病规模的预测。估算了紧急需求，还考虑了人道主义应急计划对所有目标国家发布的需求。此外，还展示了针对配电网的拟议响应计划。捐助者必须提供超过 2,608,084,209 美元的紧急资金，以满足每个目标国家至少 40% 的需求。总体而言，结果表明向目标国家紧急和公平地分配资金以克服 COVID-19 爆发的重要性。

结论：

捐助国对人道主义呼吁的快速反应将有助于向最贫穷国家立即和公平地分配救济物资。这种分布可能有助于支持卫生系统，抑制 COVID-19 的传播，并防止无限的灾难。