Strategic Preparedness of the COVID-19 Vaccine Cold Supply Chain: A Perspective of Sub-Sahara Africa

Almost thirteen months since the first case of Coronavirus also known generically as COVID-19 virus (SARS-Cov-2 virus) was reported outside china, an estimated 76.1 million people have contracted the virus worldwide. Of these, close to 1.7 million have died while millions of others have reportedly recovered and or classified as being actively infected with the virus. The pandemic has swept through every country on earth with significant social, economic and health consequences. No proven curative remedy has been found as yet, however, it is highly expected that by mid-2021, viable vaccines could be ready for mass anti-covid-19 immunization globally. Imperatively, the success of the delivery of the worldwide immunization campaigns will largely depend on how fast the vaccine cold supply chain works. More specifically, the cold chain configuration of the vaccine supply chain as in other immunization campaigns is expected to play a central role in safely delivering the vaccines on time to virtually everyone on the globe. The key question, however, is how prepared for the mass covid-19 immunization campaigns are regions across the globe and especially Sub-Sahara Africa where the cold supply chain enablers are still far from maturity? Through a systematic review of extant literature, this paper finds that despite Sub-Sahara Africa being a recipient of mass vaccinations against infectious diseases for over five decades, the cold supply chain is still poorly developed and vulnerable to haphazard breaks which can pose serious risks to the precious medical cargo and impede the immunization programs and in the worst case scenario lead to loses in cargo due to heat excursions and human life. Therefore, the cold supply chain preparedness of Sub Sahara Africa countries is critical at this point in time. Further, the paper examined the preparedness of the high value cold chain indicators, that is, transport infrastructure systems and the energy link. It emerged that both the transport systems and the energy link were still underdeveloped to reliably provide last mile solutions to the immunization process in most contexts. This could increase the risk of temperature excursions also impair the immunization process. Also, most of the energy that is being used to power the refrigeration process is not green and this could have implications for the carbon emissions. The study, therefore, recommends that vaccine distribution agencies could explore partnerships with private and public transport and logistics sector players and strategize on how last mile distribution of the vaccines can be achieved seamlessly even in the remotest of the regions. Refrigerated trucks will also need to be introduced into the context in large numbers. Also it is recommended that energy efficient refrigerators using renewable energy such as solar replace the current domestic and absorption type refrigerators. Still other green energy powered refrigerators need to be developed and deployed so as to provide efficient vaccine refrigeration while keeping the carbon signature significantly low.