Call for help: Denmark helps Denmark

The spread of COVID-19 is putting a huge pressure on the health care sector’s supply of protective equipment, in short supply locally.

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By Bente D. Knudsen

The Danish Medicines Agency, Lægemiddelstyrelsen, is responsible for the approval and supply of amongst other respiratory protective devices, visors and hand sanitizer, and other vital equipment such as COVID-19 test kits needed to fight coronavirus.

The fear of running out has been high, as the demand for this kind of equipment is high worldwide due to the epidemic.

Getting a full picture of the supply situation in Denmark in close collaboration with the regions, municipalities as well as companies in and outside of Denmark has therefore been top of the to do list at the agency.

The Denmark helps Denmark campaign was launched asking organisations, authorities, institutions and private companies to submit their ideas about how to obtain protective equipment and COVID-19 test kits.

The agency has also urged everyone to limit the use of protective equipment and to only use exactly what is needed – no more no less.

The Danish Medicines Agency has worked at getting the full picture of the supply situation in Denmark in close collaboration with the regions, municipalities as well as companies in and outside Denmark.

As part of this work, the agency has just launched the Denmark helps Denmark campaign – a campaign urging organisations, authorities, institutions and private companies to submit their ideas about how to obtain protective equipment and COVID-19 test kits to the authorities.

More than 500 suggestions have already been submitted and the agency is working hard to identify what is possible and what is not amongst them.

A challenge is to make some ideas fit with the Danish standards and laboratory equipment already in place (such is the case concerning the COVID-19 test kits).

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One of the outcomes has been the production of alcohol needed to make hand sanitizer at local distilleries as well as a collaboration between the medical industry, the Confederation of Danish Industry and the Danish Medicines Agency to be able to switch production to gloves, lab coats, mouth shields, isolation gowns, and masks as well as hand sanitizer.

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“People are working flat out in many areas of society to fight the problems of supplying protective equipment. This collaboration is yet another example of all the hard work. The companies are showing amazing social responsibility,” Thomas Senderovitz, Director General of the Danish Medicines Agency, said in a press release.

Ideas can be submitted here: