Northeastern Illinois Challenge of Delivering COVID 19 Vaccines Discussion
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UPS is combining multiple refrigerators at its airport hubs to store vaccines in transit.
PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed shortcomings in global supply chains and forced business to make logistics a bigger strategic priority. Successfully delivering COVID-19 vaccines will test manufacturers and shippers on what lessons have been learned.
“If 50 million doses were available today, could we distribute them?” asked Glyn Hughes, head of cargo at the International Air Transport Association (IATA). “The answer is almost certainly ‘No’, for every jurisdiction.”
Nonetheless, the air-cargo industry is making plans for delivering as many as 20 billion COVID-19 vaccination doses, even before regulators have approved any of the treatments under development. Shippers say they are having to plan without knowing exactly how many vaccine doses they will have to ship, where they will be manufactured, and how cold they have to be kept.
Pharmaceutical companies and shippers say they expect the bulk of vaccine supplies to be transported by air. Cargo-airline executives are working on a delivery schedule that assumes initial batches become available during the traditional peak season for shipping that runs from fall through early February.
Carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and DHL have started preparations such as introducing new temperature-monitoring systems to track future vaccine shipments. They are building “freezer farms” combining multiple refrigerators at their airport hubs to store vaccines in transit. Vaccines have to be kept at a very low constant temperature throughout the journey to prevent spoiling.
Yet Cargo flights are fast filling up through February with bookings for consumer electronics, apparel, and industrial parts through the holiday season and new year. Cargo executives said they expect it will take two years for a vaccine to reach all of the world’s population, with particular challenges in some emerging markets where infrastructure is limited. Fortunately, the air-cargo industry is not starting from scratch. Pharma products have been one of the fastest-growing and most profitable cargo types over the past decade. Shippers have developed increasingly sophisticated supply chains for vaccines in recent years, especially for the flu. Gene therapies, another booming area, already require transport and storage at very low temperatures.
IATA estimates transporting a single dose to the global population would require the equivalent of 8,000 fully-laden Boeing 747 flights. A recent study by DHL and McKinsey & Co. pegged demand at 15,000 flights, while including syringes and protective equipment for medical staff would increase the cargo-space requirement.
Pharma shipments already account for around 1.9% of global air-cargo volume, said IATA, and adding COVID-19 vaccines could double that share. Not every freighter jet is able to handle very cold cargo because of regulatory restrictions on how much dry ice they can transport to cool them, said executives.
Related: https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-deli…
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