To vaccinate people, supply chain disruptions must be fixed – Prof. Gyöngyi Kovács
‘Now that we have vaccines, it’s time to think about vaccination – and that’s a massive effort with regards to securing temperature control from manufacturing to vaccine use,’ said humanitarian logistician, Professor Gyöngyi Kovács of the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. ‘Every (coronavirus) vaccine has its own temperature range, and no country or region has an actual choice of what they want to deliver; it’s what they manage to get in time,’ she said. ‘This needs to be a global effort, and one that truly considers equity in health around the world.’
Properly functioning supply chains are crucial not just for coronavirus vaccinations, but also to keep the world moving and tackle multiple new and existing challenges, some exacerbated by the pandemic, such as conflict, food security and climate change. ‘The pandemic came on top of those but hasn’t eliminated any of them,’ she said.