UAE company helps to vaccinate 1.7 million people in Africa

Now Via Medica is teaming up with the Hope Consortium to ramp up the vaccination drive

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  Via Medica International Healthcare chief executive Frank Ludick, right, joins Hope Consortium officials to discuss the acceleration of the group's global vaccination efforts.

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  Two Hope Consortium mobile vaccination units will be flown from Abu Dhabi to Africa to boost inoculation programmes on the continent.

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  Robert Sutton, head of the logistics cluster at Abu Dhabi Ports, says the Hope consortium has administered more than 4.6 million vaccine doses around the world.

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  The mobile vaccination units will be fully equipped to help tackle the spread of Covid-19.

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  Mr Ludick says 15 medics from his company vaccinate about 1,000 people every day in Africa.

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  The Hope Consortium will use the mobile vaccination units as part of its efforts to tackle Covid-19 around the world.

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  The mobile vaccination units will support inoculation drives in Africa.

A UAE company is partnering with the Hope Consortium to help inoculate people in the UAE and Africa against Covid-19.

The vaccination programme already started in Africa in March through the Via Medica International Healthcare, a UAE company.

So far they have vaccinated 1.7 million people in Africa and the UAE.

The company is now expanding its operation in Africa to set up more vaccination centres, storage freezers and mobile vaccination clinics to reach remote areas.

“We have the capability to carry out operations in two to five countries at any given point in time,” sad Frank Ludick, chief executive of the company.

The Abu Dhabi-based Hope Consortium is also now planning to working with the company to boost vaccination numbers,

Abu Dhabi last year launched the global logistics centre to deliver billions of Covid-19 vaccine doses around the world by the end of next year.

The hub is being run by the Department of Health Abu Dhabi, Etihad Cargo, Abu Dhabi Ports Company, Rafed, part of ADQ, and SkyCell.

The Hope consortium can distribute up to six billion doses around the globe.

“This [figure] is going up to 18 billion by the end of next year,” said Dr Omar Najim, executive office director at the Department of Health - Abu Dhabi.

“So we have the biggest vaccination logistics centre in the region, and one of the largest globally.”

He said the main challenge facing countries around the world was transporting and storing vials at the right temperature.

Some Covid-19 vaccines, such as that of Pfizer-BioNTech, must be stored at a temperature of between minus 80ºC and minus 60ºC.

“Eighty per cent of the manufacturing of vaccines is happening in Europe and North America, but 80 per cent of the rest of the world lives outside of Europe, so the logistical challenge is huge,” Dr Najim said.

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  Vaccines require special conditions and this Abu Dhabi centre is able to provide them all.

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  Boxes of vaccines at the Hope Consortium Vaccine Hub in Abu Dhabi.

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  Dr Omar Najim, executive director at the Department of Health, at the Hope Consortium centre in Abu Dhabi.

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  Boxes of vaccines at the Hope Consortium Vaccine Hub in Abu Dhabi.

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  Robert Sutton, head of the Logistics Cluster at Abu Dhabi Ports, in the UAE's largest freezer centre, where temperatures are set for the various vaccines stored at the facility.

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  Robert Sutton, head of the Logistics Cluster at Abu Dhabi Ports, in the UAE's largest freezer centre, where temperatures are set for the various vaccines stored at the facility.

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  A stacker crane handles boxes of vaccines, placing them on the shelves at the Hope Consortium Vaccine Hub in Abu Dhabi.

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  Robert Sutton, head of the Logistics Cluster at Abu Dhabi Ports, in the UAE's largest freezer centre, where temperatures are set for the various vaccines stored at the facility.

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  Boxes of vaccines at the Hope Consortium Vaccine Hub in Abu Dhabi.

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  The Hope Consortium Vaccine Hub in Abu Dhabi.

“We expect the demand will be increasing, but the problem with some countries in Africa was that they initially believed they have the capability to run the vaccination programmes by themselves,” Mr Ludick said.

But some governments soon realised they lacked the infrastructure for mass vaccination programmes.

“Expiry of vaccines is very critical. There have been millions of vaccines that have been returned to providers because they [governments] did not have the resources to preserve them,” he said.

“Governments cannot withdraw all their medical staff from the healthcare system to run the vaccination programme, so this is where our help comes in.”

The government of each country secures its own vaccine supply, and Hope Consortium provides them with the delivery solutions, and the end-to-end supply chain if needed.

“If they don’t have the means on the ground [to deliver the vaccines to the people], Via Medica comes in and we take care of the vaccination process from the time the aircraft arrives, until the person gets jabbed,” Mr Ludwick said.