“Actually, nobody knows exactly what to prepare for,” grumbles John Twisk, director of Cyberfreight Pharma Logistics in Nieuw-Vennep. His company organizes the storage and transport of medicines.
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Lack of information
Twisk has daily consultations with other companies who will be involved in the transport of the corona vaccines. This includes airlines such as Air France-KLM to handlers who load the planes and truckers who take care of the last part.
Together they have set up a task force to organize transport as well as possible, but that is not easy.
“We expect a total of 8 to 16 billion doses, but that doesn’t mean much to us. We mainly want to know how many doses are in a box, how big the box is and what the weight is. That is crucial for us. . ” Twisk thinks that pharmaceutical companies do not want to share information for fear of making the competition wiser.
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Five pharmacists
Five pharmaceutical companies are working on a corona vaccine. These vaccines each have their own ideal storage temperature.
The vaccine from Pfizer should be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius, Moderna’s product at minus 20 and AstraZeneca is working on a vaccine that can be stored at between 2 and 8 degrees.
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Styrofoam box
“We make specialized packaging that ensures that the temperature remains the same during transport”, explains Lambert Dekkers, director of Care Pack Holland. “So those are not the styrofoam boxes like you see at the fishmonger.”
Dekkers does expect a lot more orders, but he doesn’t know yet which vaccine with the corresponding ideal temperature it goes. “A lot also depends on how long the vaccine has to be kept well. Where should it go?” And as long as Dekkers is not aware of this, he can only prepare to a limited extent.
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Shortage of dry ice
Dry ice, among other things, can be put in packaging such as that of Dekkers. Dry ice has a temperature of almost minus 80 degrees Celsius. It is therefore extremely suitable for transporting the Pfizer vaccine. Nippon Gasses makes this dry ice in a factory in Dordrecht.
“We have invested in a new machine which has increased our production by 70 percent, but we don’t know if that’s enough. Maybe we’ll be short of dry ice when demand turns out to be much higher. Yes, that’s frustrating. “, sales manager Johan Voogd concludes.
According to John Twisk of Cyberfreigh, we also have to take into account that it is not a one-off operation. “People may need to be vaccinated annually.”
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