Market Access Initiative for the less developed countries (LDC) and related Issues: A Canada perspective (Part-2)

Existing amenities are not enough to store, and deliver a large volume of vaccines within a short time, say experts. The governments are considering banking on the existing cold chain as a supply chain and logistical issue for storing, transporting, and distributing coronavirus vaccines while some professionals say the main challenge will be to manage such a large volume with the existing capacity. On November 5, 2020, the Bangladesh government signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Serum Institute of India and Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd to get three crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Serum, keeping in mind the existing cold chain. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines being developed may need ultra-cold storage and transportation temperatures as cold as −70 °C (−94 °F), requiring what has been referred to as a “colder chain” infrastructure. Disruption of a cold chain due to war may produce consequences similar to the smallpox outbreaks in the Philippines during the Spanish–American War. The distributed vaccines were inert due to a lack of temperature control in transport. There are no uniform global practices to follow, customs, legal, and compliance issues, effects on the environment, supplier-related risks, issues with cold chain delivery — packaging, hardware issues, vehicle breakdown, etc. Besides the usual elements of risk that plague normal supply chains, cutting-edge cold chain logistics has its own exclusive set of problems such as product sensitivity, the increasing cost of freight, and growing regulatory hurdles.