Hello all, my name is Vikas S Menon and I am a 2nd year MBA student at Amrita school of business. Hope all are doing well. I am posting this blog after a month gap and followed by a few more. I hope you have read my previous blog. If you haven’t read, type #SCM in the search bar and you will find me.
So let’s begin,
As the world looking forward to COVID-19 vaccines though it is not approved by any government, everyone is getting ready for another challenge. A challenge to deliver the vaccines around the world. I will be listing various information from news articles regarding the cold supply chain challenge in delivering the C-19 vaccine.
To provide a single dose to 7.8 billion people which will require around 8000 Boeing 747 cargo aircraft which is a statement made by IATA. The main issue here will be the adaptability I,e. the ability of the planes to adapt to store vaccines at a lower temperature. Another one is the geographic issues where The Deutsche post DHL alerted the stakeholders about the difficulty to access C-19 vaccines to 2/3rd of the global population. The issues are regarding the lower temperature, the cost and troubles involved such as the storage, dose count, etc.
There was news where UPS have started building cold storage which exceeds the size of a football field. This facility is 2 meters tall and cuboid in shape. This storage is set at -80°C which can hold millions of C-19 vaccines. UPS didn’t disclose the client behind such an innovative storage idea but this can Pfizer and BioNTech. The reason why Pfizer and BioNTech come into the picture because their vaccine or testing ones needed to keep around -70°C to -80°C. No other cold storage can cope up with having the lower temperature required to keep C-19 vaccines but there is another solution which is the dry ice I,e. solid sodium dioxide. Though such facilities are there, Pfizer and BioNTech are trying to find out vaccines that can be stored at a higher temperature.
Moderna Inc. is also trying to make vaccines stable at a higher temperature and they succeeded in building storage and shipping at -20°C which can maintain up to 6 months. Moderna Inc also made a statement that the vaccines prepared can endure 10 days in an unfrozen state. Few vaccines like Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine which is stored at not more than -18°C can be an advantage for existing cold storage infrastructure. There are several other vaccines like Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Sanofi-GSK which are under testing do not need deep freezing and are expected to ship in an unfrozen state. In India, Snowman logistics are allotting one chamber across its 31 facilities and waiting for the regulatory approval in deploying cold storage trucks in vaccine distribution.
If there is a failure in cold-chain integrity can lead to a huge issue. Nobody is safe without immunizing everyone in the world. The EU is already made a contract with AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and BioNTech, Sanofi-GSK to make vaccines available for EU members and Non- EU members in Europe. The other issues when focusing on C-19 Vaccines is about temperature control logistics and shipment related issues. To avoid monopolization, the freely competing vaccine providers have to enable diversified supply to universal cold chains and transparency is to be ensured.
Do you think, there are other issues regarding Cold chain storage transportation and facilities for the C-19 vaccine? Do you think, this will be successful? Let me know your opinion
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