The Emirates stores vaccines for countries that do not have the necessary refrigeration facilities
Approximately 3 billion people in the world live in areas that cannot maintain an adequate "cold chain" for vaccine preservation, a problem that has generated fears that those most in need will not be vaccinated.
For this reason, the Hope Consortium, the public-private partnership led by the Abu Dhabi Department of Health and based in Abu Dhabi, aims to address this situation. It will use its capacity to handle tens of millions of vaccines at a time and will deliver them in batches as needed through Etihad Cargo and ground transporters.
The vaccine centre in the UAE capital is addressing the problem of stockpiling vials for countries without advanced refrigeration facilities, which are needed for vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech that must be kept at temperatures of -70°C.
"You can imagine a leading vaccine supplier, say in China, and a country in Africa that requires two million vaccines, but may only have a cold chain capacity for 100,000 of them," said Robert Sutton, head of the logistics group at Abu Dhabi Ports.
The move comes at a critical time in the global battle against VIDOC-19. The virus has plunged countries around the world into new blockages as cases get out of control. Most countries are in a race against time to vaccinate as many people as possible and relieve pressure on health services.
Unlike conventional vaccines that use a weakened part of the virus, Pzifer-BioNTech's vaccine uses a new technology called mRNA that trains the body to fight VID-19 using part of its genetic code. Freezing is key because mRNA can be broken above the stated refrigeration temperatures.
The Hope Consortium facility can store up to 70 million vaccines that require standard refrigeration temperatures of 2-8°C, such as those produced by Sihopharm and Oxford/AstraZeneca, which are expected to meet most of Africa's vaccine demand. They also have the capacity to store 3 to 5 million vaccines that need ultra-cold, down to -80°C, thanks to 50 units of freezers prepared for this purpose.
Each unit is approximately five times the size of a standard freezer. They have multiple compartments, allowing the storage of vaccines at multiple ultra-cold temperatures.
The Consortium has currently managed over three million vaccines and expects to reach 500 million before the end of the year. Many of these are expected to be produced in the United Arab Emirates, after the country reached an agreement to manufacture the vaccine from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm. In this way the Gulf country aims to meet local demand and also the expected global demand.
International logistics companies such as Agility, Aramex, Hellmann and Kuehne + Nagel are participating in the consortium, making it possible for the vaccine to reach the entire world. Abu Dhabi Ports, Etihad Cargo, Rafed and SkyCell are also collaborating in this important work.
