The Covid-19 Distribution Issue

The world let loose a collective sigh of relief late last year upon the announcement of several firm’s availability of vaccines for the deadly Covid-19. As countries worldwide begin purchasing from the various firms, one glaring issue stands out- distribution.

The Philippines with its population of roughly 108 million people has served as the breeding ground for the virus, with nearly 500,000 cases since the pandemic began. The Duterte administration has taken a laissez–faire approach, banking heavily on the rollout of a vaccine rather than active contact tracing and testing programs.

However, now that vaccines are available, the administration has to face the challenges of handling a just and safe rollout of the vaccines. There are several issues to take into account with handling of the vaccines, primarily:

1. Expiry of the vaccines;
2. Temperature needed for transportation and storage, and;
3. The archipelagic nature of the country.

Of the leading vaccines, Pfizer has the most stringent requirements. Each dose needs to be administered within just 10 days of manufacturing. Its temperature requisites are a whopping -70 C, much lower than traditional logistics chains’ capacity to deliver. It is highly uncertain whether the country’s logistics sector will be able to cope with these stringent barriers.

Moderna and the other leading Phase 3 trial vaccines have similar barriers, but only require cold storage of at least -20 C, which is almost industry standard for cold storage in logistics chains. The country’s logistics providers may have no choice, unless a rapid scale up of extreme cold storage can be done over the course of the following months.

It is also important to note that the vaccine requires two doses- further increasing distribution woes and storage issues. Ultimately, if enough of the population is adequately vaccinated, the coronavirus can be contained. A failure and mismatch of distribution however can lead us back to where we began- a lockdown that results in economic disaster.

The country can hardly afford this, and logistics providers should coordinate and cooperate if the Philippines is to effectively utilize the vaccines.