GCRF_NF55 Fast-track vaccine cold-chain assessment and design for mass scale COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh (VaCoBD)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: Chemical Engineering
Abstract
Universal vaccine access is an existing major challenge in low-income countries, mainly due to the lack of robust cold-chains, resulting in loss of potency for +25% of vaccines. Mass vaccination for COVID-19 globally will require a new fast-track approach to assess, re-engineer and build upon available cold-chain logistics assets and systems, to deliver the vaccines at scale and speed never before considered. We aim to evaluate the capacity and preparedness of the cold-chain framework of Bangladesh as a case study country for mass scale COVID-19 vaccination, and assist the policymakers in defining optimised, sustainable interventions and lasting legacy opportunities. Our objectives are: (1) evaluating the context and resilience of cold-chains and resources in Bangladesh, collecting primary data for a robust assessment of the cold chain capacity and gaps; (2) developing a bottom-up whole systems approach building upon existing logistics infrastructure, and distribution systems for mass scale COVID-19 vaccination including modal shifts; (3) developing a cost-benefit analysis framework for the bottom-up (vaccine) systems model; (4) assessing different intervention scenarios for mass-scale COVID-19 vaccination preparedness, and helping shape the country's immunisation strategies and priorities; (5) informing policymakers and other key stakeholders, including Monetary Financial Institutions about the cost-effective intervention alternatives for cold-chain development for mass-scale vaccination for COVID-19, which may be useful for future emergency or disasters; and (6) disseminating learnings to other countries, including methodology, to assess their requirements and to simulate best options for creating sustainable temperature-controlled supply-chains for health and medical supplies in epidemics and natural disasters.
Organisations
- University of Birmingham (Lead Research Organisation)
- Nexleaf Analytics (Project Partner)
- World Bank (Project Partner)
- DawsonGroup (Project Partner)
- United Nations (Project Partner)
- ZANOTTI S,pA (Project Partner)
- Gavi (Project Partner)
- The Sure Chill Company Ltd (Project Partner)
- SOLARCHILL PROJECT (Project Partner)
Publications
Paddeu D
(2020)
Shaping Urban Freight Systems via a Participatory Approach to Inform Policy-Making
in Sustainability
De A
(2022)
Optimization model for sustainable food supply chains: An application to Norwegian salmon
in Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review
Tiwari V
(2020)
Public Attitudes towards Electric Vehicle adoption using Structural Equation Modelling
in Transportation Research Procedia
Zunder T
(2016)
Handbook on Transport and Urban Planning in the Developed World
Foster, A
(2022)
Baseline Refrigeration Emissions in the UK
T. Peters
(2020)
Understanding the Cold-chain Challegne for Covid-19 Vaccinations
| Description | The work has resulted in a significant output in the development of a model to automatically generate a deployment and distribution network of vaccines across a given geography, analysing the local transport system and available resources to identify the least-cost solution within a given mission target. The model self-selects and self-organises to the given scenario based on known constraints, assets and cost model of logistics. The project also has reports on social and institutional analysis of intervention scenarios, business models for private capital mobilisation and vaccine distribution capital budgeting cashflow model. These has generated keen interest among the stakeholders/policymakers in Bangladesh and they are keen to further develop and implement this for future vaccine cold-chain implementations. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcomes and learnings will be disseminated to other countries, including methodology, to assess their requirements and to simulate best options for creating sustainable temperature-controlled supply-chains for health and medical supplies in epidemics and natural disasters. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Energy,Healthcare,Transport |
| Description | The reports and outputs and our methodologies are being used by multi-national Agencies to plan their covid-19 response. We are also transferring knowledge to other projects - for example in Africa, the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-chain. We are supporting NGOs and private sector groups in plannign covid-19 immunisation strategies. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Energy,Transport,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Building High-Level Support and National Capacities to enhance Climate and Ozone Protection through Cooling Efficiency |
| Amount | $1,214,500 (USD) |
| Organisation | United Nations (UN) |
| Department | United Nations Environment Programme |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | Kenya |
| Start | 08/2021 |
| End | 03/2023 |
| Description | Clean and Energy Efficient Cooling for Livestock Supply Chains in Bangladesh |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | World Bank Group |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 03/2021 |
| End | 10/2021 |
| Description | Sustainable Cold-Chain systems for food resilience |
| Amount | £366,038 (GBP) |
| Organisation | UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2021 |
| End | 09/2022 |
| Description | Zero Emission Cold-Chain(ZECC) - Building the Road to Sustainable Cold-Chain Systems for Food Resilience |
| Amount | £1,465,929 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/V042548/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2021 |
| End | 05/2025 |
| Title | Business models for private capital mobilisation |
| Description | The report presents three innovative business models that are potentially applicable in easing the pressure of vaccine cold chain. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Using Bangladesh as a case study, the report shows that using a Cooling-as-a-Service (CaaS) model could provide a cost-effective solution for the Government of Bangladesh to achieve its Covid-19 vaccination deployment plan. |
| Title | SOCIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF INTERVENTION SCENARIOS |
| Description | The report focuses on analysis the potential and preparedness of the vaccine delivery system, social and institutional barriers for delivery, inequality risks and protection of vulnerable groups across gender, income levels, age groups, and geographical areas (both urban and rural), and the requirement for human resources and training for vaccine delivery, data capture, monitoring process, and maintaining equipment. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This provides valuable insights for policymakers around financial allocations, overcoming challenges in transport infrastructure perhaps through investment in more cold trucks for vaccines, freeze tags, and updating old equipment and deep-freezers. The report would also recommend ramping up recruitment of trained staff for timely and proper vaccine delivery at the local level. |
| Title | The VaCOBD agent based model environment |
| Description | Model to automatically generate a deployment and distribution network of vaccines across a given geography, analysing the local transport system and available resources to identify the least-cost solution within a given mission target. Method self-selects and self-organises to the given scenario based on known constraints, assets and cost model of logistics |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Method discussed at length with Bangladeshi government policy advisers who were very interested and have requested further development and refinement to suit their needs |
| Title | Vaccine distribution Capital budgeting cashflow model |
| Description | This report projects the capital required for fulfilling the national vaccine deployment plan of Bangladesh using discounted cashflow model. Capital budgeting dataset which was sourced from literature, Bangladesh's national vaccine deployment plan and experts' interview |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This will allow policymakers in Bangladesh an independent resource to make policy decisions around capital financing of sustainable vaccine deployment programmes |
| Description | Local to Global Cold Chain Summit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The Local to Global Cold-chain summit took place on the 29th September 2022 at the University of Birmingham, hosted by the Centre of Sustainable Cooling. The event brought together more than 50 research, industry and government partners from the UK, EU and Africa to share their knowledge and discuss research and innovation needs and collaboration opportunities to operationalise sustainable, equitable and resilient cold-chains for food and health globally. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Local to Global Cold-chains for food and health resilience |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Purpose was to inform policymakers and seek to influence future policy in this area in Rwanda, Kenya. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Presentation on 'Understanding cold-chain challenges for COVID-19 vaccination' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Bing XU and Dr Xinfang Wang made a presentation at the 12th International Conference on Applied Energy around the challenges of vaccine cold-chains and more specifically around Covid-19. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Research Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The research festival targets staff and students and features talks and panel discussions, providing opportunities for researcher development with Enterprise and the Research Engagement Directorate, and enhancing the research culture and community. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | The Clean Heating and Cooling Forum- COP27 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The event attracted global audiences with a lively question and answer session with requests for further information following the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | VIP Visit to Africa centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | COP President, the Rt. Hon. Alok Sharma MP, visited the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-chain (ACES) during his attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda. The COP President said, "ACES is a demonstration of how we can work together, to help tackle rising emissions and keep alive the goal of limiting average global temperature rises to 1.5°C.' The visit has raised the profile of sustainable cooling and cold-chain and sparked discussions and further questions from the target audience on engagement with the activities around cooling and cold-chain. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | VaCOBD project roundtable with Bangladesh policymakers/stakeholders |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The purpose of the workshop/roundtable was to engage with policymakers and present to them with the model on building a resilient and sustainable Covid-19 vaccine cold-chain for a lasting positive legacy. Since the model was being developed by the Project with Bangladesh as a case study, the main stakeholder was the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS),Government of Bangladesh. Several key people from the DGHS attended the roundtable meeting and the discussion sparked questions and provided insights into the workings of the model and how it can be adapted to other developing countries to optimize their vaccination programmes. The participants also provided valuable inputs to improve the model and tailor it towards Bangladesh's needs. The outcome from this engagement was that DGHS is keen to continue their involvement in improving the model given the immense benefits it could bring to the Bangladesh vaccine programme. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Webinar on 'The COVID-19 vaccine supply chain: Overcoming the challenges and complexities' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The webinar was delivered to an audience comprising mainly of businesses to outline the complex journey of manufacturing a vaccine and explore the challenges in the cold chain logistics needed to deliver it. Prof Peters Toby Peters' talk focused on the distribution from factory door to patient, and the challenges inherent to keeping the vaccine at 2-8°C throughout - or at even lower temperatures as is the case with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The webinar encouraged the audience to better understand, amongst other things, the impacts of complex manufacturing, geographical location, scale of distribution as dependent on country government choices of vaccination programmes and data management to adequately track products in the supply chain. This was followed by a question/answer session and a healthy discussion around the topic from those attending. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://events.imeche.org/ViewEvent?code=TLE7231 |
| Description | Webinar on 'Understanding the Cold-chain challenge for a COVID-19 vaccine' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The webinar organised by the British High Commission in collaboration with UNICEF, WHO, Ministry of Health of Bangladesh, the University of Birmingham and BRAC University, 19 Nov 2020 (Toby Peters, Farzana Munshi, Ijaz Hossain). The purpose was to reach an audience of policy makers within Bangladesh, highlight the challenges of delivering vaccines in Bangladesh specific to Covid-19 and to raise awareness of the cold-chain infrastructure requirement for successful and rapid delivery of vaccines in-country. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.facebook.com/BRACUniversity/posts/the-british-high-commission-in-bangladesh-in-collabora... |
| Description | Workshop on 'Fast-track vaccine cold-chain assessment and design for mass scale COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Prof Peters and Dr Bing Xu presented this project to the audience and spoke about the objectives and how the outcomes from this project will be used to feed in to policy around vaccination cold-chains in Bangladesh and how the learnings can be disseminated to other countries to create sustainable temperature-controlled supply-chains for health and medical supplies in epidemics and natural disasters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |