BS Reads: From deal-making to air lifting, how the world will be vaccinated

As nations across the world make steady progress in inoculating their populations, a lot of vaccine deal-making is underway to set the stage for what will perhaps be the biggest logistical operation in recent history. UNICEF alone is expected to ferry over a billion doses to Africa and other poorer regions of the world, primarily from India.

While mass airlifting of vaccines is yet to begin, global deal-making shows many interesting trends. At the moment around 16 nations with production capabilities are looking to send vaccines to 189 others. India would be one of the world’s leading vaccine suppliers in Africa and some nations in its immediate neighbourhood. Rich western nations where pharma companies have developed their own vaccines are most likely to sell to other rich nations while licencing their product for manufacture to middle income ones. Russia and China’s vaccines will dominate Latin America and parts of South East Asia, while corporations that made the earliest breakthroughs in vaccine development could face stiff competition from others, who entered rather late in the process.

Astra Zeneca’s vaccine, developed in collaboration with Oxford University, is being produced in 7 nations including India – the most for any manufacturer. The geographical spread of this vaccine’s production indicates that it could be better placed than others to be shipped across the world once domestic requirements are partially satiated. From India to Australia to Brazil to China to South Korea and the UK, Astra Zeneca has licenced production agreements with commercial partners or its own production facilities in these nations. While India is manufacturing four different vaccines, including an indigenously developed one by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, the US is manufacturing 5 of them – the highest for any nation in the world.

Three Chinese vaccine developers and manufacturers including CanSino Bio, Sinovac and China National Biotech will be supplying vaccines to countries in virtually every continent. By January 2021, China had formalised bilateral arrangements to supply almost 350 million doses to 13 nations including Peru and Chile in South America and south east Asian nations like Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia. Ukraine has signed licenced agreements with China to produce 3.1 million doses of Sinovac’s vaccine on its own territory. Russia, meanwhile, will be shipping over 160 million doses to 10 nations in addition to giving licences to India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Mexico to produce the Sputnik V vaccine developed by Moscow-based Gamaleya Research Centre. Russia’s vaccine is being produced in India by Hyderabad-based Hetero Pharma, but it hasn’t yet signed deals to ship it to any other country. Pfizer too, has inked agreements with many nations. especially in Europe, and most of its global shipments are expected to be sent from the US or Belgium.

Perhaps the biggest and most crucial cargo of the vaccine to the world will originate in India. One of the biggest offtakes of vaccines is being done by COVAX, a global multilateral alliance of various UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from India. COVAX is expected to buy two billion doses – half of which would be Astra Zeneca’s and Novavax’s product being manufactured by Pune based-Serum Institute of India. Agreements are in place to send over 70 million doses to other nations like Bangladesh, Philippines and South Africa from the country. Brazil has a private purchase agreement with Bharat Biotech for India’s indigenous vaccine. but most of the additional doses are likely to be produced in Brazil under a licensing agreement. COVAX aims to transport almost a billion doses to 92 poor nations, mostly in Africa and Asia over the next few months. The movement from India, which would be co-ordinated by UNICEF, would perhaps be the biggest ever vaccine airlift and logistical exercise in recent human history.

This movement will be facilitated by a consortium of 18 of the world’s biggest logistics companies and airlines entailing transport of vaccines in temperature-controlled environments throughout their journey. While most of the signatories of the charter are global logistics behemoths like DHL and UPS, two global commercial airlines will be part of this exercise. Many of the 800 strong aircraft fleet of Lufthansa and Singapore Airways will be used in this operation. Lufthansa said it had been preparing the groundwork for this operation with a special task force since the summer of 2020 when lockdowns were enforced across the world and the availability of a vaccine was uncertain.

“The distribution of temperature- and time-sensitive pharmaceuticals is far more demanding than the transport of fabric masks. We were among the first airlines to specialise in the transport of medical goods and pharmaceuticals and can therefore draw on many years of experience. Thanks to the recent expansion of our ground infrastructure, we can also handle larger quantities while constantly maintaining the cold chain and transport them worldwide. We are in contact with UNICEF regarding the worldwide distribution of the vaccine” said Katharina Stegmann, spokesperson of Frankfurt based Lufthansa Cargo.

Like Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines management had hit the drawing board in May 2020 to chalk out plans for readying its cargo operations for airlifting vaccines when the time came. Singapore Airlines' authorities told Business Standard, “We will make available cargo space on flights and accord uplift priority to Covid-19 vaccine shipments across the key vaccine trade lanes. This means readying the airline’s seven Boeing 747-400 freighters, as well as the airline’s passenger aircraft fleet which will be deployed on cargo operations to increase the capacity for vaccine transportation where needed.”

According to UNICEF estimates transporting vaccines to 92 nations would cost commercial airlines around $70 million. Global transport outside the COVAX initiative would probably cost many times more. A DHL white paper published in 2020 estimated that it would take 15000 flights to transport 10 billion doses of vaccines in 15 million cooling boxes over two years to ensure universal vaccination across the globe.

While big international airlines will be the horses pulling the global vaccine buggy, India’s domestic airlines are expected to start off with deliveries to neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. Domestic airlines commenced vaccine deliveries within the country on January 12 and have ferried several million doses to different airports across the country from production centres in Pune and Hyderabad.

The pandemic may have claimed over two million lives with inoculations having just begun. But it’s the coming few months that would be a test of how big business and global vaccine diplomacy can work together to ensure thousands more do not succumb to the coronavirus.