UAE’s Hope Consortium models global vaccine distribution

The UAE-based Hope Consortium is a public-private partnership that brings together logistics entities from around the world for vaccine distribution in the Middle East and globally, and it could serve as a model for governments in other regions to facilitate COVID-19 vaccine distribution. [caption id="attachment_94114" align="alignright" width="450"] Photo/Hope Consortium[/caption] The partnership was spearheaded in November 2020 on behalf of Abu Dhabi’s health department, according to a statement from consortium member Etihad Cargo. Other early members included Abu Dhabi Ports Group, Rafed — the health care purchasing arm of Abu Dhabi holding company ADQ — and Swiss temperature-controlled ULD company SkyCell. In December, the consortium announced the addition of four international freight forwarders: Kuwait-based Agility, Dubai-based Aramex, Germany-based Hellmann Worldwide Logistics and Switzerland-based Kuehne + Nagel. Governments around the world have largely taken responsibility for initial vaccine distribution and, in the case of the Hope Consortium, the Abu Dhabi health department is overseeing regulatory compliance of the included companies. According to Madhav Kurup, Hellmann’s regional CEO for the Middle East and South Asia (MESA), the UAE government conducted an initial audit of Hellmann’s facilities to ensure compliance with vaccine transportation mandates. Hellmann, however, had already established a UAE-based entity for health care distribution back in 2010. “At that time, the whole hub concept in the health care industry was new,” Kurup explained in an interview with Air Cargo World . “We worked closely with the ministry of health in conceptualizing the vertical solution and then actually making it work for the last 10 years for many global pharma companies and achieved market leadership.” In explaining the distribution roles played by the various involved companies, Kurup noted that the forwarders each bring their own strengths to the consortium. “There are four selected partners to the consortium; most of us have global presence and some have a strong regional presence,” said Kurup. “So I definitely see a role for all the four players, depending on which region they are strong at and depending on the areas of value and expertise they can bring to the whole consortium concept.” Regional diversity is important for the vaccination effort, not only for distribution to the end-users, but also due to the mix of origin points where the vaccines are manufactured. For example, the UAE government has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine manufactured currently in the U.S. and Belgium, as well as the Chinese-developed Sinopharm vaccine. Major logistics companies began preparing for distribution well ahead of distribution so as to be ready to begin immediately upon regulatory approval. “We started with the global validation of these origins a few months in advance and then identified which are going to be the origins for these vaccines,” said Kurup. “Afterwards we have prepared ourselves in terms of validating the route and the processes right from the factory, the airports, the handling facilities and, of course, the actual transportation route airport-to-airport and arrival. Of course, we also validated corresponding regulatory processes.” Despite the preparation, vaccine distribution still has significant challenges to overcome in the months ahead. “I think challenges can be categorized into three C's: cost, compliance and capacity,” said Kurup. Forwarders are working to proactively manage capacity requirements, and “ensure the compliance requirements through various regulatory processes in different countries around the region and the world,” he added. As for cost, airfreight rates have been elevated since widespread passenger flight cancellations in April 2020, but the largest forwarders — and even some smaller entities — have sought creative capacity arrangements, charters and carrier partnerships to mitigate the challenges where possible. The inclusion of a major carrier like Etihad should be an advantage in securing airfreight capacity for the Hope Consortium. Similar arrangements in other regions during the pandemic, particularly the U.S. public-private partnership Project Airbridge for transporting PPE into the U.S. during early months of the pandemic, illustrate the potential benefits of such a partnership for vaccine distribution. Government entities would likely need to take the lead again in launching such partnerships, however. “We are involved with governments in other parts of the world as well, because in the initial phase, governments are often calling the shots on how this is going to be managed,” said Kurup. “Maybe at some point the processes move into a commercial operation, then it'll go into the normal supply chain business of the healthcare industry, but in the beginning, there is quite a lot of focus by the governments.”

UAE’s Hope Consortium models global vaccine distribution

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