Smooth factory to aircraft movement of Covid vaccines our priority right now: AAICLAS

November 6, 2020: Keku Bomi Gazder, chief executive officer of AAI Cargo Logistics and Allied Services (AAICLAS), on Thursday said that the biggest focal point of his company right now is the seamless first-mile movement of Covid-19 vaccines from the factories of pharmaceutical companies all the way to the aircraft.

“We are in talks with pharmaceutical companies, customs and security agencies for this," he said.

“We are going a step further to discuss if it is possible to make a direct move from the factory to the aircraft, with the assistance of the security and customs. Of course, we have to follow all regulatory requirements. But for us to have the shortest time between the moment vaccine leaves the factory and it gets into the aircraft is the biggest challenge” he continued.

AAICLAS is operating out of 25 domestic airports in the country and out of this 17 has some sort of cold storage facility. Keku also raised concern about handling vaccines in the airport and scheduling the aircraft and noted that the logistics industry has to be on one single platform as these factors need more collaboration.

He was talking during the first-ever Global Vaccine Logistics Virtual Summit 2020 organised by the Indian Transport & Logistics News (itln.in) presented by Frankfurt Airport and supported by AirBridgeCargo Airlines and GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo.

"Our biggest focus is on the first-mile movement of vaccines from the factory to the aircraft. We are in talks with pharma companies, customs and security agencies for this," said, @KekuGazder, CEO, @AAICLAS_in #LogisticsMakesItHappen #vaccinelogistics #covid19 pic.twitter.com/gL0knl62Tv

— ITLN Live (@ITLNLive) November 5, 2020

Senior economic adviser to the ministry of civil aviation, Vandana Aggarwal, informed that the government will ensure the availability of air freight, terminal, as well as the warehouse capacity needed to airlift the Covid-19 vaccines.

“India is well placed to deal with the logistics of Covid-19 vaccines as the country already serves 1/6 of the world population with vaccines every year. We are looking into the logistics regulations that will come in the way to move these vaccines whether it is the storage environment or multimodal connectivity to the airside or handling environment or any regulatory impediments,” she said.

“We are also looking into the physical, IT or human infrastructure bottlenecks. However, we will be in a much better position to prepare once we have the information regarding the volume, weight and size of vaccines and containers that has to move around the country in a daily basis,” she added.

Chandrashekar Ranga, deputy drugs controller, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), said, There are different types of Covid-19 vaccines getting ready in India at different phases. However, all these vaccines are either proteins or living organisms highly sensitive to temperature and moisture. That’s why we need stringent control on temperature to preserve their potency. The two important categories are those that have to be in 2-8 degree Celsius or -18 degree Celsius."

“However Indian logistics industry must also look into decreasing the transport time and finding more economical transport solutions to move Covid-19 vaccines,” he added.