Covid vaccine pre-orders already in millions despite no guarantees

0
899
  • A number of countries have already placed pre-orders despite no guarantee of a safe and effective vaccine
  • Medical peripheries for administering the vaccine doses will also be required
  • Providing a single dose to 7.8 billion people would fill 8,000 747 cargo aircraft, according to an estimate
  • Investment in specialized cool chain facilities and equipment has already started

Although no Covid-19 vaccine has been approved yet, pre-orders for the vaccines already number in the millions of doses, with huge implications and challenges as well as opportunities for logistics, according to a new report.

A new whitepaper from Transport Intelligence said a number of countries have already placed pre-orders even though there is no guarantee a safe and effective vaccine will be developed and approved:

  • UK: 340 million doses from GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, AstraZeneca/Oxford University, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax
  • EU: 400 million doses from AstraZeneca and 300 million from GSK/Sanofi; talking also to Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech for a total 1.3 billion doses.
  • Canada: 90 million doses
  • US: 100 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine and 300 million doses from AstraZeneca. As of August 2020, it had ordered 800 million doses in total

Moreover, Russia’s vaccine, developed by Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, has apparently received requests for 1 billion doses, said the report on “The Logistics of the Covid-19 Vaccine.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has suggested that 20 million doses would be required initially for US health workers; 80 million for essential workers and 53 million for the over 65s. Each would require two doses of the vaccine.

Should vaccine production be up and running, the numbers of people which need to be reached will run into the billions, according to whitepaper author John Manners-Bell, CEO of Ti.

The report said that in India, Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute, estimated that 35 billion people could be vaccinated, although not until 2024. If a booster is required, this would mean 2.7 billion doses needed in the country alone.

Medical peripheries as well

Not only the vaccine but the medical peripheries which are used every time a dose is administered will also be required. This will involve needles, syringes, swabs, vials and vaccine containers.

These peripheries will be distributed through different but existing supply chains although at enormous volumes required, said Ti, a global transport and logistics market intelligence provider.

The CDC had commented that 2 million doses might be available in the US at the end of October 2020, with 20 million to 30 million available by the end of the year. However, more conservative estimates suggest the vaccine would not be available to Americans until mid-2021.

Given the existing pre-orders, the largest producers of vaccine are likely to be the UK, US, China, France, Germany and Russia.

In terms of air cargo, this would mean significant volumes flowing through London Heathrow , Louisville, Memphis, Philadelphia, Newark, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and Frankfurt.

Questionable air capacity

 Air cargo is expected to play an important role in the worldwide distribution of the vaccines given their perishable nature. However, capacity in the industry has been impacted by the cancellation of many air passenger services, and existing capacity in September 2020 was still a third below the previous year. Thus, moving the huge volumes of vaccine will present challenges.

According to industry organization International Air Transport Association (IATA), providing a single dose to 7.8 billion people would fill 8,000 747 cargo aircraft (although a significant proportion of this volume would be moved by road). DHL/McKinsey have estimated that there would be 200,000 movements of pallets on 15,000 flights over two years to enable global distribution.

IATA also highlighted other challenges, including availability of temperature-controlled facilities and equipment, availability of staff trained to handle time- and temperature-sensitive vaccines, robust monitoring capabilities to ensure the integrity of the vaccines is maintained, and security arrangements that will make sure shipments cannot be tampered with.

Further, the fast processing of exports and imports will be fundamental as “the risk of the vaccine becoming ineffective increases significantly the longer the shipment is delayed at border crossings,” said the report.

Investing in cold chain

The need to store and move the vaccines in specialized environmental conditions is already resulting in a massive investment in cool chain facilities.

Some of the vaccines will require “deep-frozen” storage at temperatures as low as -80 degrees Celsius, which very few freezers can reach. At the same time the doses will only have a short life at the temperatures found in refrigerators, which means the vials will require a just-in-time approach to getting the vaccine to where it’s required as well as express transit times.

Despite these uncertainties, Ti said investment in specialized cool chain facilities and equipment has already started ahead of the hoped for roll-out of a vaccine:

  • UPS is building freezer farms at Venlo, Netherlands and at Louisville, Kentucky with more planned for UK, Germany and South America.
  • FedEx has freezer facilities at its hubs in Memphis, Tennessee and Paris, France. It is adding refrigerated capacity in California and Texas.
  • DHL has recently opened a life sciences center in Indianapolis with capabilities of holding vaccines at various temperatures down to -20 degrees Celsius.

But distributing the vaccine in developing countries will be very difficult since freezing and refrigeration facilities are in short supply in large parts of Asia, Africa and South America. Consistency of electricity supply can also be problematic. These challenges, combined with a fragmented, rural population profile, will mean that it will be difficult to get the vaccine to the necessary medical setting while it is still within the appropriate temperature range.

On the cost of distribution, this will depend on the specific attributes of the vaccine. For example, Pfizer’s vaccine would need shipping and storing at -80 degrees; Moderna’s vaccine will require shipping at -20 degrees; AstraZeneca’s alternative will need to be kept cold but not frozen and so distribution would be much easier.

However, all these vaccines would seem to need an initial dose followed by a booster. Johnson & Johnson’s would only need a single dose and has the benefit of only requiring refrigeration rather than freezing.

Ti said that until a Covid vaccine gains approval and its storage, movement and shelf life can be ascertained, it is impossible to identify the necessary logistics requirements for its global distribution.

However, for sure, the logistics resources required and their associated costs will be huge: from investment in freezer farms or chilled warehousing; the airlift; the refrigerated road freight movements; the last mile delivery to medical settings as well as the sensor and software technology to track and validate the integrity of the cool chain. On top of this, there will be the distribution of medical peripheries and their secure disposal.

Much of this capacity is already in short supply and will be in addition to important and ongoing vaccination programs such as the flu. For all the challenges, however, the approval of the Covid vaccine “will provide a massive opportunity for those in the relevant sectors of the logistics industry,” concluded Ti.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash