The pharmaceutical industry has transported vaccines for many years without much fanfare.
The medical industry’s race to produce the world‘s first coronavirus vaccines in just a few months heightens the urgency for the workhorses of global trade to be ready for the historic burden of defeating the disease.
Only 28% of companies involved in supply chain logistics feel well prepared to handle Covid-19 vaccines and 19% rated their readiness as very unprepared, according to a survey released on Wednesday that showed wide band between optimists and pessimists. The survey, conducted in mid-September by the International Air Cargo Association and Pharma.Aero, is part of an effort to coordinate the large-scale distribution of vaccinations.
During parts of the vaccine journey, electricity will be available for refrigeration and battery-powered coolers.
Just over half of the 181 people surveyed already have the vehicles, containers and connections to move hundreds of millions of vials in constant freezing. Nearly a quarter said they are still trying to procure such equipment, the survey of airlines, freight forwarders, airport operators and ground handlers showed.
Preparing those responsible for transferring the drug from manufacturing sites to health clinics around the world is paramount as doses, once in transit, must remain ultra-cold as they move through a global economy where supply chains are already at full capacity. The industry is also trying to avoid bidding wars, shortages, and every country’s attitudes for itself that sparked a scramble for personal protective equipment in the early months of the pandemic.
“This is the biggest challenge the logistics industry faces today or maybe ever,” said Emir Pineda, director of aviation trade and logistics at Miami International Airport and a member of the board of directors of the association, known as Tiaca. “The supply chain is made up of many links and if one of those links breaks, we will have a problem.”
With little precision on when drugmakers will produce enough vaccine for mass distribution, logistical estimates are difficult to come by and inherently unreliable. Pineda said the deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine alone could generate 65,000 tonnes of air cargo, more than four times the amount of vaccine carried in 2019 and enough to fill 930 Boeing Co. 747 freighters.
Different ball game
The pharmaceutical industry has been transporting vaccines for many years without much fanfare, so the expertise exists. But the scale and complexity of this effort will require much greater coordination between the private sector, customs officials, governments and non-governmental organizations.
“Before Covid-19, it was 100% progressive: we knew how many influenza there were in the world, we know how many cases of meningitis there were,” said Frank Van Gelder, general secretary of Pharma.Aero. “But all of a sudden you have a pandemic, which takes over the entire population of the world and then you start playing a different ball game.”
Such an airlift would be difficult in normal times. The task seems particularly daunting in addition to the sustained and solid demand for online goods and basic necessities like groceries that are already filling cargo planes and container ships. The cost of air freight is up about 50% from a year ago, and sea container rates have tripled since the start of the year.
Meanwhile, transport companies have started mapping where the bulk of the vaccine will be produced – in places like Illinois, North Carolina and the North East in the US, UK, Ireland. and in Germany in Europe, and in the pharmaceutical centers of Asia in India and China.
While companies like FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. are investing in freezer spaces, there are always concerns about the “last mile” of distribution, especially in remote and often poor areas that are difficult to access with extreme refrigeration – anywhere -20 to -80 degrees Celsius (-4 to -12 degrees Fahrenheit) that will be required.
During parts of the vaccine journey, electricity will be available for refrigeration and battery-powered coolers. On other legs, however, the survival of doses will depend on the dry ice packaged in boxes, which will raise a range of risks, including premature thawing, to safety issues for handlers due to the fumes emitted during storage. sublimation.
The complexity of the mission could put so much pressure on the logistics industry that it could require military might, through authorities such as the US Civil Reserve Air Fleet, a program established in 1951 after the Berlin Airlift, which allows the Pentagon to use commercial planes for national security reasons.
Cold corridor
“This is a launch of the iPhone 12 on steroids,” said Neel Jones Shah, global head of airline relations at San Francisco-based freight forwarder Flexport and director of Tiaca. “I would still say that the confidence in our readiness is maybe 6.5 out of 10.”
This cautious optimism may grow as more companies step in to help. Among the leaders in cold chain refrigeration is Thermo King, part of Trane Technologies Plc, a Dublin-based manufacturer of industrial equipment. It positions its range of units at each stage of the cold corridor that the logistics industry is trying to set up.
“We are trying to make all our capacities available”, Francesco Incalza, responsible for Thermo King activities in Europe. “When I hear, for example, that there isn’t enough capacity in the supply chain to carry 8 billion doses of vaccine – if you organize yourself, there is capacity.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
