TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS
transporting PPE, medical supplies and vaccines. But we shouldn’t forget that there is still a lot of work to do in every country for a proper restart and development of all economic sectors. And to do that, we need passengers to fly. We need passenger flights to connect cities and countries again. Travel restrictions need to disappear. People and goods need to move freely between regions and countries. Because that creates the global connectivity that we need. It is all about connectivity between countries, that connectivity that passenger flights create. If there are more flights, that means that more cargo capacity will be available, and it will be much easier for supply chains to be planned.
Are shipping guidelines still being shaped to deal with the COVID-19 specimen shipments? How does the International Air Travel Association (IATA) interact with regulatory agencies and stakeholders in the clinical supply chain, and have you changed how you coordinate in light of the pandemic? In the case of laboratory tests, delays due to shipping problems could mean a delay to initiating the necessary public health response or identifying the treatment required for a patient. The IATA Infectious Substances Shipping Guidelines Manual is the complete guide to transporting any sort of infectious substance quickly and safely. stay up to date with the latest regulations, trends and best practices and contain documentation and packaging examples, checklists for every step of the process, and shipping regulations for air, sea, road, rail, courier and the postal service. For example, during the pandemic, the World Health Organization advised that the transport of specimens to laboratories for analysis was working well, although there have been delays caused by doubts in the correct classification of specimens of COVID-19 as UN 3373, Biological substance, Category B, where there has been an opinion that the specimens should be UN 2814, Category A. But, based on the experience of shipping specimens of SARS, swine flu, MERS and other similar types of viruses, the WHO and other national health authorities such as the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) were advising health authorities to ship specimens of COVID-19 as UN 3373, Biological substance, Category B. To
ensure the global response to suspected cases of COVID-19 was as rapid as possible, it was important that specimens were transported to laboratories for analysis without delay – and with proper classification of the substance for the international shipping. IATA as a trade association represents, leads
and serves the aviation industry mainly through the creation of global standards and supporting the industry to adopt and implement those standards. We advocate on behalf of the industry with governments, other international organisations and regulatory bodies. Indeed, we are known as a standard-setting organisation. And two examples on what we do and how we do it are our Shipping Guidelines for Infectious Substances mentioned previously and our Guidance for Vaccine and Pharmaceutical Logistics & Distribution, where IATA collaborates with leading authorities and organisations to facilitate the proper COVID-19 vaccines transportation. This document summarises all the considerations to be taken into account for large-scale handling, air transport and distribution of vaccines.
Organisations that contributed to the guidelines are: International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA); International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA); the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/ WHO); United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF); World Customs Organization (WCO); World Health Organization (WHO); World Trade Organization (WTO); and the World Food Programme (WFP).
What are the biggest challenges for transporting temperature-controlled cargo in aviation right now? For any vaccine or medicine, efficient global delivery is vital. But they require stringent handling and transport conditions to avoid medicines losing their potency and becoming ineffective. And this is a real challenge given the current environment of limited airfreight capacity and global connectivity resulting from the grounding of nearly two thirds of the passenger network. Handling and transporting vaccines brings another dimension to the supply chain logistics. Such high-value and sensitive products not only require a temperature-controlled management
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