VACCINE LOGISTICS
Vaccine Logistics Alliance and Abu Dhabi’s Hope Consortium plan for potential 20 billion global vaccine deliveries by year-end
Shared lessons from UAE-led global Covid-19 vaccine rollout
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enior officials from the UAE’s supply chain and logistics sectors recently shared their insights into how the country is leading the way in the distribution of billions of covid-19 vaccines across the globe in a recent webinar. The Vaccine Logistics Alliance (VLA) and the Hope Consortium are two UAEbased groups comprising government and private entities collaborating to ensure an expected surge of inoculations are delivered safely and efficiently this year, in particular to developing countries in the Middle East, Africa, and South-East Asia. Together with more than a dozen global pharma, airline, ports, and freight forwarding partners, the two groups plan to have the capacity to transport, store, and deliver more than 20bn Covid-19 vaccine doses across the globe by the end of 2021.
Colossal task “Undertaking such a mammoth task in developing countries with little existing infrastructure is a huge challenge,”asserted Robert Sutton, Head of Logistics Cluster,
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Abu Dhabi Ports, a founding member of the Hope Consortium, which includes 13 other regional and global partners. Sutton added that cooperation and collaboration between the consortium’s partners and network of external partners is critical in ensuring vaccines are not just delivered, but administered safely: “We go beyond the movement of products; we support the deployment of nurses, doctors, field hospitals, and tents into the countries that need it most,” he continued.
Top stakeholders Ryan Quinlan, Chief Commercial Officer, Supply Chain & Logistics, DP World, and Dennis Lister, Vice President of Cargo Commercial Development, Emirates SkyCargo were also part of the webinar. DP World, a global ports operator, and Emirates, Dubai’s flagship airline, teamed up with Dubai Airports and International Humanitarian City (IHC), a Dubaibased global centre for humanitarian emergency response, to form the Vaccine Logistics Alliance in January 2021.
Dennis Lister, VP, Cargo Commercial Development, Emirates.
Logistics challenges Quinlan said the international vaccine distribution drive now underway is the largest single logistics challenge globally since the end of the Second World War. “Dubai’s ideal location at the cross-roads of multiple continents combined with an already robust cross-border trade
