Hope Consortium to facilitate Covid-19 vaccines availability in Kenya

The HOPE Consortium, along with other industry partners, have developed an extensive and integrated, end-to-end supply chain solutions, capable of delivering millions of vaccines from the point of production to the point of vaccination, safely, effectively and transparently.

The executive office director, department of Health, Abu, Dhabi, Dr. Omar Najim, at a virtual meeting, organized by HOPE Consortium, said the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted societies, economies, communities, and caused disruption across many areas around the globe and emphasized on the need to collaborate to enable economic recovery. “We need to come together from the point of vaccine manufacturing to end users in need, anywhere in the world”, he said.

The organization is keen to ensure the delivery of vaccines to all those in need irrespective of where they are and to help win the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.  The effort places Abu Dhabi as the central life sciences hub for the global response to the pandemic by leveraging its strategic position as a gateway to 2/3 of the global population.

“To address the need for complete and fully-integrated vaccine supply chain solutions, we have developed one of the most extensive and integrated, end-to-end supply chain solutions in the world, saving countries and communities the challenge of building their own supply chains”, Dr. Najim added.

Working with a pool of partners to provide multi-faceted logistics services to handle transport, demand planning, sourcing, training, and digital technology infrastructure, to facilitate vaccine availability across the world.

Comprising of leading Abu Dhabi entities, the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Ports, Etihad Cargo, Rafed, SkyCell, and Maqta Gateway, as well as a wide body of global logistics players, the HOPE Consortium is developing capacity to transport, store, and distribute 18 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses per annum to countries around the world, including Kenya.

The partners, which are industry leaders within their own sectors, have come together to leverage their unique capabilities to offer vaccine delivery solution covering both the physical movement of the vaccines in parallel with a digital solution monitoring and reporting on the supply chain progress and compliance.

In terms of vaccine wastage due to limited refrigeration capacity in certain parts of the world, the Consortium employs a unique hub & spoke model which combines the Emirate’s strategic position as a global gateway with the partners’ own unique logistical capacities. The model allows it to store large quantities of vaccines at its advanced cold and ultra-cold storage hub and align its deliveries with the ability of recipient countries and communities to absorb these supplies safely.

The Consortium is also training the local medical and logistics personnel on how to handle these sensitive products, thereby helping eliminate vaccine wastage and ensuring that every vaccine counts.

To assure end-users that vaccines they receive are safe and effective, all the vaccines delivered through the Hope Consortum’ supply chain are connected to “mUnity,” which is a digital blockchain-enabled solution developed by Maqta Gateway. Tracking and managing the journey of the vaccines through the cold chain, from production all the way to the inoculation, in real-time, ensuring that the vaccines always remain within the prescribed temperature bands.