You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Letter
Swiss Armed Forces deployment during the COVID-19 pandemic: militia pharmacy officers’ roles and duties
  1. Nicolas Widmer1,2,
  2. C Abbet3,
  3. J Brunner2,3,
  4. J Faro Barros2,3,
  5. S Ullmann3,
  6. C Beeler3,
  7. B Hug3,
  8. C Reichert3,
  9. V A D Bättig3,
  10. G Caglioti3,
  11. M Flück4,5,
  12. H Moll5 and
  13. R Herklotz3
  1. 1 Logistics Training Unit, Swiss Armed Forces, Thun, Switzerland
  2. 2 Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
  3. 3 1st Logistic Brigade, Swiss Armed Forces, Bern, Switzerland
  4. 4 Swiss Armed Forces Pharmacy, Swiss Armed Forces, Ittigen b. Bern, Switzerland
  5. 5 Staff of the Surgeon General, Swiss Armed Forces, Ittigen b. Bern, Switzerland
  1. Correspondence to Nicolas Widmer, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland, University of Geneva, 1206 Geneva, Switzerland; Nicolas.Widmer{at}unige.ch

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmilitary-2020-001605

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    From 6 March to 30 June 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swiss government has mobilised several conscript (militia) formations of the Swiss Armed Forces to assist the cantons (states) with healthcare, logistics and security in the fight against SARS-CoV-2. With 5000 members of the military, mostly from the medical troops, it was the largest mobilisation since the Second World War.1

    During the first pandemic wave, four hospital battalions were mainly dispatched in support of civilian hospitals and nursing homes and a medical logistic battalion was primarily assisting the Swiss Armed Forces Pharmacy. The professional collaborators of this central pharmacy, including full-time pharmacists, were mainly involved in the supply of therapeutic products for the troops deployed (medical material; supply class …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors NW, CA, JB, JFB, SU, CB, BH, CR, VADB, GC, MF, HM and RH had substantial involvement in the acquisition and analysis of data presented and in the drafting of the letter. All authors gave approval of this final version of the paper.

    • Funding This study was funded by the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (Centre of Competence for Military and Disaster Medicine).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.