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Travel restrictions challenge vaccine rollout, airlines warn
Air cargo operators may struggle to distribute new COVID-19 vaccines effectively unless pandemic travel restrictions are eased.
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This creative image taken in a studio in Paris on November 16, 2020, showing a syringe and a vaccine vial with the reproducted logo of a US biotech firm Moderna, illustrates the announcement of an experimental vaccine against COVID-19 from Moderna that would be nearly 95% effective. (AFP/Joel Saget)
Air cargo operators may struggle to distribute new COVID-19 vaccines effectively unless pandemic travel restrictions are eased, global airlines cautioned on Monday.
The warning came in vaccine transport guidelines issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is pushing governments to replace travel curbs and quarantines with testing.
"If borders remain closed, travel curtailed, fleets grounded and employees furloughed, the capacity to deliver life-saving vaccines will be very much compromised," the IATA document said.
Moderna Inc said on Monday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine had proved 94.5 percent effective in a clinical trial, a week after rival drugmaker Pfizer reported 90 percent efficacy findings for its vaccine. Once approved, both vaccines are likely to require transport and storage well below freezing, posing logistical hurdles.
Widespread grounding of passenger flights that normally carry 45 percent of global cargo in their holds has taken out capacity, thinning the air freight network and driving up prices.
Read also: Planes, dry ice, pharmacies: The logistical challenges of COVID-19 vaccines
Existing immunization campaigns have struggled with the partial shutdown. The World Health Organization and UNICEF "have already reported severe difficulties in maintaining their planned vaccine programmes during the COVID-19 crisis due, in part, to limited air connectivity," IATA said.
Vaccines will need to be shipped to developing countries reliant on passenger services for cargo, IATA's head of cargo Glyn Hughes told Reuters. Even in industrialized states, vaccine dispersal may be a tighter bottleneck than production, requiring shipments to secondary airports on passenger jets.
In preparation for the challenge of mass vaccine distribution, governments should move to reopen key passenger routes backed by robust testing, the airline body argues.
"There are several more months for governments to go through the planning cycle," Hughes said, leaving enough time to "get passenger networks safely resumed, looking at safe travel corridors (and) mutual acceptance of testing procedures."
