A possible vaccine against COVID 19 will cause headaches in the logistics world. Freight companies stress that a coordinated strategy is needed, especially now that air cargo capacity is limited and transport costs have risen.
A vaccine against the corona virus is still in the works, but carriers and researchers are already warning Bloomberg of distribution problems lurking. Just when countries are protecting their borders and focusing on their own recovery, a global strategy is needed to distribute the vaccine widely.
Complex transport
"We are not ready," Neel Jones Shah, head of air carrier relationships at freight forwarder Flexport, believes to Bloomberg. "Let's face it: supply chains for vaccines are exponentially more complex than supply chains for personal protective equipment," Shah says, referring to materials like surgical masks and gloves. "You cannot ruin protective equipment by leaving it on the tarmac for a few days; you will destroy vaccines."
Refrigeration could be a problem. Researchers expect that the vaccine that will eventually reach the market will need to be kept at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius throughout the shipping process, while other variants may need more sophisticated freezers that can keep them at a temperature of minus 80 Celsius. Any deviation could ruin the dose.
On top of this, transport costs have risen sharply since the outbreak of the corona crisis. As the number of passenger flights has fallen, air transport prices have roughly tripled. It raises questions of fairness and accessibility: how will a drug that needs delicate and expensive transport reach remote and poorer areas?
Communication needed
Atlas Air Worldwide notes that different parties in the chain are not in touch with each other, which complicates planning. "Shippers and manufacturers are not communicating," he says. CEO Michael Steen says manufacturers, logistics providers and governments still have plenty of time to figure out how best to use scarce capacity and support vaccine distribution. However, action is needed in the short term.
