Pharma Logistics and National Vaccine Deployment Planning

Now more than ever, the safe transport of sensitive pharmaceutical material is a topic highly discussed globally. With billions of Covid vaccines to be transported all over the world (in various temperature requirements), one does wonder how they are transported, what technologies are used, what logistics challenges exist and how can such challenges be solved. When it comes to deploying a national vaccination plan, the challenge in the last mile intensifies due to the vast amount of nodes (vaccination sites) that need to be supplied. This presentation will give an in-depth insight in pharma logistics and feature additional logistical aspects to be considered when developing a vaccine plan at a national scale, with a focus on developing countries.

Omar Samawi is a German-Jordanian logistics expert, educated as a logistics engineer in Germany, with many years of work experience in pharma logistics. He was involved in global projects dealing with all sorts of pharmaceutical sensitive material, including active pharmaceutical ingredients, supplying clinical trials, controlled substances and lately Covid-19 vaccines. Omar Samawi has been called in 2020 by the Ministry of Health in Jordan as a logistics expert to be part of the national vaccine deployment plan. Jordan has been very active in vaccinating its residents, with access to many different vaccine sources.