Pharma gateway readies task force to handle vaccine cargo

While United Airlines began operating flights past weekend to gear up for shipments of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for distribution in India, preparations like having a dedicated Covid task force to handle the cargo is on at Mumbai airport, India’s largest gateway for pharmaceutical export-import.

The task force will collaborate and carry out advance planning with stakeholders such as airline customers, supply chain partners, regulatory and governmental bodies, and vaccine distributors, said a Mumbai International Airport Ltd spokesperson. Key challenges in handling the cargo are temperature management and time spent in transit.

Mumbai airport authorities are laying the groundwork to create Digital Dedicated Pharma Corridors linking India with aviation hubs in Europe and the West Asia, in a bid to expedite transportation and cold chain storage of the Covid vaccine for distribution.

A task force has been assembled to work out the logistics of handling the cargo. “The task force will work at temperature management, reduce dwell time (the duration that cargo containers spend within temporary storage facilities in transit, like at airports) with prior special approvals from regulators in order to ensure an unbroken cold chain for vaccine movement from the manufacturing facility to the end distributor,’’ a Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) spokesperson said. The airport is also planning a dedicated, round-the-clock customer service cell for Covid-19 vaccine EXIM (export-import) consignments to handle customer queries, pre-alerts and status updates.

“The Mumbai airport is well-positioned to support, maintain and optimize pharma-dedicated corridors around the world. We are also working closely with airports in Europe and West Asia to roll out fully Digital Dedicated Pharma corridors, particularly for the transportation of the Covid-19 vaccine,’’ said MIAL.

Among other measures in place are flexible slot management for ad-hoc charter operations, a round-the-clock green channel facility with dedicated truck docks, and X-Ray machine. With clinical trials of vaccines by Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute of India, Moderna, Zydus Cadila and Pfizer currently on, the government expects heavy movement of consignments once approval comes from the drug regulators.

Globally, Covid vaccine distribution would be one of the biggest logistical exercises to be taken up. For global coverage some 2,00,000 movements by pallet shippers on 15,000 flights may be needed, said a paper released by DHL.

The Mumbai airport’s temperature-controlled Export Pharma Centre with an annual handling capacity of 3,50,000 tonnes has six cold chambers that offer 2-8 degrees Celsius storage. But the Pfizer vaccine demands even lower temperature for storage.