The Armed Forces Pharmacy acknowledged mistakes in the process of securing medical supplies, including protective face masks, to combat the spread of the coronavirus last spring. The pandemic presented a major logistical challenge that the organisation was not ready to meet, senior managers of the army pharmacy said at a press conference in Bern on Thursday. But, they added, “at no time were there supply gaps that would have affected the health system.” In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, the Swiss government asked the army pharmacy to secure medical products, such as masks, personal protective equipment, respirators and disinfectants, for the cantons and health facilities. It was given this responsibility because it is the only unit of the federal administration that has a license for the wholesale acquisition of medicines and the certifications needed to procure medical goods. Overnight the volume of acquisitions it was handling rose 150-fold from the normal...
