June 2, 2020

Delivering 4 million doses of vaccines to Brazil

While the race for the corona vaccine is still ongoing, the global demand for immunisation is higher than ever before. This, combined with the restricted air traffic, has led to the disruption of supply chains of several medicines that are not directly related to Covid-19. The Brazilian government therefore faced a shortage of some important vaccines, in particular the vaccine against Meningitis C, which is normally given to infants from about two months of age.

To support the Brazilian Ministry of Health’s National Immunization Program, the Ezequiel Dias Foundation (Funed) ordered four million doses of vaccines against Meningitis C.

Since there was no room for failure, 70 SkyCell containers filled with 139 pallets consisting of 4 million doses of the Meningitis C vaccine were deployed to ensure a constant temperature of 5°C.

The only way to bring this large volume of the medicine safe and timely to Brazil was chartering an aircraft. SkyCell, DHL and Lufthansa have joined forces to transport the vaccine doses from the production site in Siena via Frankfurt to Belo Horizonte.

Thanks to the smooth cooperation of all parties involved, the products could be transported within three days from Italy to Brazil where they arrived in pristine condition.

Besides making vaccines accessible to patients in such a short period of time, the pharma manufacturer has also achieved a positive impact for the environment. It saved almost 1’361’000 KG of CO₂ using SkyCell’s light and sustainable container solutions. This is equivalent to the emissions of 230 homes’ electricity use for one year.