Brucargo, the cargo division of Brussels Airport, has established a BRUcure Taskforce to take the lead for the transport of the first COVID-19 vaccines.
Within the BRUcure Taskforce, a specific standard operating procedure is under development for the COVID-19 vaccine. Every player in the chain knows which requirements must be met when handling a COVID-19 vaccine shipment.
“Thanks to intensive digitisation, our cargo community also has a centralised platform for sharing all relevant data regarding a shipment. For the COVID-19 vaccine transport, we want to offer complete transparency to all shippers and each operator within the chain, so that the location and quality of the shipment can be easily tracked”, said Nathan De Valck, Head of Cargo Product & Network Development of Brussels Airport Company.
Geert Keirens of Air Cargo Belgium said: “The COVID-19 vaccine story yet again shows the strength of Brucargo. Thanks to our community’s extensive experience in transporting vaccines, in particular the Ebola vaccine on dry ice, and the years of collaboration, our cargo community can offer a robust logistics platform for importing and exporting all types of COVID-19 vaccines, at the service of public health.
“In addition, ACB, thanks to a partnership with the province of Flemish Brabant, is focusing on a community control tower function, whereby shipments of COVID-19 vaccine will be continuously monitored at Brucargo.”
Prepared for any scenario
The first job of the BRUcure Taskforce is to define all possible scenarios for the various types of vaccines. Each type of vaccine demands a different method of transport, packaging and storage. Some vaccines, for example, must be shipped on dry ice, while others will require refrigeration at the customary 2-8 degrees Celsius.
Pharma specialist Samuel Speltdoorn, Cargo Business Development Manager at Brussels Airport Company, who will be heading up the Taskforce, said: “In addition to temperature sensitivity, there are quite a few unknown elements, such as the manufacturing location of the vaccines, the number of doses per person, the volume that a cargo pallet with vaccines will occupy taking into account the packaging, and so on.
“All companies active in temperature-sensitive transport at our airport are now working together to offer an answer for each scenario.”
An application is under development for the BRUcloud digital platform which will make it possible to track the COVID-19 shipment in real time at any moment in the transport chain.
“Here too we have to assess what this means in the various scenarios. Monitoring a shipment on dry ice may require a different detection system than the regular refrigerated shipments. These different monitoring systems must then all be linked to the BRUcloud platform”, said Speltdoorn.
International collaboration crucial
Brucargo is also putting its experience with community operation, end-to-end pharma transport and digitisation at the disposal of other airports within the joint project Sunrays of TIACA and Pharma.aero. The University of Antwerp also participates in this project.
Added De Valck, who is also chair of Pharma.aero: “Other airports are faced with the same questions as we are. It is entirely logical that we bundle questions and answers concerning, for example, additional capacity for storage at airports, or capacity available on aircraft.
“Here too the shippers of the vaccine are involved, in order to define together the protocols for the transport of the valuable vaccine and map out transport flows. Sunrays assists airports in the solution of such issues and in the sharing of knowledge.”
In addition to Brussels Airport Company and Air Cargo Belgium, the BRUcure Taskforce consists of :
4Advice, Aviapartner Cargo, Bolleré Logistics, Brinks Global, Brussels Airlines, CEVA Freight Belgium, DHL Express, DHL Global Forwarding, dnata, DSV Air & Sea, EFL Global, Euro-Mex, Expeditors, Federal Public Service Finance – customs services, Finnair, Geodis, Hazgo, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, Inter Aviation Services, H. Essers, Jan De Rijk Logistics, Kuehne+Nagel, Lufthansa Cargo, MT Consulting, MWM Logistics, Nallian, Ninatrans, Nippon Express, POM Flemish-Brabant, Qatar Airways Cargo, Quality By Design (QBD), Scan Global Logistics, Singapore Airlines Cargo, S-P-S Belgium, Swiss International Airlines, Swissport Cargo, United Cargo, University of Antwerp and WFS Belgium.
