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How can millions of doses of vaccines be transported quickly and safely when they are finally ready? The logistics sector is preparing, as it can, at a stage in which there are still several unknowns.
How many vaccines will be needed?
According to the International Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (IFPMA), between 12 and 15 billion doses are expected to be produced worldwide. However, it will be insufficient to reach the entire world population before 2023 or 2024, estimates Duke University, North Carolina in the United States, which monitors the emerging market of about 200 vaccine candidates.
Will all vaccines be transported in the same way?
In terms of storage conditions, laboratories are preparing two types of vaccines: some, like the one being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, will require very low storage temperatures, down to -80 ° C, while others can be stored at more conventional temperatures. , between 2 ° C and 8 ° C.
The first type, which will be particularly difficult to transport, should represent up to 30% of the doses to be distributed worldwide, estimates Mathieu Friedberg, CEO of the logistics company Ceva, quoted by the French agency AFP.
For the rest, of the second type, specific logistics will always be necessary. “Continue being [uma logística] pharmaceutical and therefore sensitive, but less technical than -80 ° C “, explains Mathieu Friedberg.
Will they be transported by plane?
Ceva’s CEO believes that about half of the vaccines should involve logistics that combines air and ground resources, but it all depends on distances and the urgency of transportation. On Friday it became known that United Airlines has already started operating charter flights to distribute the Pfizer vaccine.
How will air transport be organized?
“Some kind of air transport will always be necessary,” said the head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) fleet, who said that transporting a single dose to each inhabitant of the planet would fill the equivalent of 8,000 large cargo planes. .
When doing the calculations for the Air France fleet, for example, the 99 long-haul airliners can carry more than 400,000 doses in the hold and each of the two Boeing 777s takes more than a million doses.
“We must increase passenger flights with warehouse capacity”, defends the executive director of IATA, Alexandre de Juniac, for whom “we must open the borders to allow distribution.”
The fall in international air traffic, due to the covid-19 pandemic, limited the supply, since 60% of the cargo is transported in the holds of passenger aircraft and, therefore, the current capacity of the air fleet is insufficient to answer the search.
How are the carriers organized?
In Portugal, as in other countries, working groups, the so-called ‘task forces’, were created at all levels, be it at the level of the State, the sectors and the companies themselves. The accreditation of transport companies for the distribution of vaccines corresponds to the laboratories themselves.
“An institution or health authority in a country works with a laboratory, the laboratory certifies its logistics chain, and it is up to it to work with its subcontractors so that this logistics chain respects all the criteria”, summarizes Mathieu Friedberg, from Ceva.
Is everything ready?
“There are still many unknowns,” explains the logistics company Geodis, from the quantities to be transported, at what temperatures, according to what schedules, with what distribution schemes, among others.
Regarding the added challenges in the case of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, Mathieu Friedberg recalls that there is already transport at -80 ° C, for the transport of organs. “What changes here is the scale, in a relatively short period of time.”
“The guidelines are not yet completely clear for transport, so it is extremely difficult to tell customers whether reefer containers are the most appropriate way to distribute the vaccine,” said Mike van Berkel, sales representative in the Netherlands at the aviation container manufacturer VRR Aero.
But the industry professionals heard by AFP are unanimous: they will be ready.
