KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 3): Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL), the German multinational package delivery company, says it is ready to transport Covid-19 vaccines.
“We have been working on the movement on the vaccine for two to three months in hyper care,” DHL Express CEO John Pearson said in a virtual press conference today.
The press conference was held in conjunction with the release by DPDHL, together with NYU Stern School of Business, of the DHL Global Connectedness Index 2020: State of globalisation in times of Covid-19 Organizational.
The report is the first comprehensive assessment of globalisation during the spreading of the pandemic.
Pearson said DPDHL has produced a white paper in cooperation with McKinsey and has been getting it on the desks of health ministries, governments, life science and healthcare companies, as well as firms involved in the ancillary world of vaccines.
“The movement on vaccines via express is right in our wheelhouse,” he Pearson, noting that DPDHL’s supply chain footprint capabilities — which includes mail, parcel, express, air freight, sea freight and all forms of warehousing — “is a typical supply chain at its greatest”.
“We got the time in our transit time parameters to deliver that from anywhere to anywhere,” he said.
Pearson explained that the transit time in any sort of shipment, in any normal day, to any of the 221 countries DPDHL serves, is between one and five days.
Pfizer has developed a shipping container that can maintain the required -70° C for up to 10 days unopened.
Thus, Pearson said, this will give the group a leeway of five days to deliver the vaccines.