(Yicai Global) Dec. 10 -- Sinopharm Group has recently started logistics and delivery rehearsals for Covid-19 vaccines in China to ensure the safety and efficiency of its cold-chain logistics system, the firm announced today.

These exercises involve emergency rescue plans and entire-chain procedures in 31 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Over 40 provincial and prefecture-level subsidiaries have participated in key operations in quality, information, customer service, warehousing and transport trials, including trunk route transport and delivery to centers for disease control and prevention in districts and counties and community healthcare centers.

Inactivated inoculants must be transported and stored between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, and this industry chain is consummate and the technologies are mature, but mRNA vaccines must be transported at 70 degrees below zero, and distribution thus presents a great challenge for cold-chain logistics.

“Terminal vaccination agencies must enhance organization and management of the vaccination if they do not buy ultralow temperature devices," Shanghai Securities News reported. “Vaccines must be used within five days from when they arrive, otherwise they will be useless. Vaccination agencies will bear the losses in such cases, which are much higher than just buying the devices,” a staffer with the CDC in eastern Shandong province said.

Formed in Shanghai in January 2003, Sinopharm was listed in Hong Kong in September 2009 and owns Chinese mainland-listed companies Sinopharm Holding and China National Accord Medicines, as well as more than 1,000 other subsidiaries, according to the firm’s website, which also notes it is a leading distributor and retailer of pharmaceuticals, healthcare products and medical devices, as well as being a leading supply chain service provider in China.

Sinopharm penned a logistics strategic cooperation agreement on the BioNTech mRNA vaccine with Fosun Pharmaceutical on Sept. 7 to jointly advance commercialization of and supply chain services for the jab.

The pair will jointly set up a cold chain system for the vaccine that encompasses its storage and delivery to improve its supply chain services, promote and improve the emergency protection mechanism for using it, and better its strategic warehousing and distribution abilities for the emergency provision of vaccine supplies, the agreement noted.

Editor: Ben Armour, Xiao Yi