The HOPE Consortium, an Abu Dhabi-led public-private partnership delivering large quantities of COVID-19 vaccines globally has joined Kenya-based cargo airline, Astral Aviation to provide vaccine distribution solutions to Africa.
The partnership underlines the HOPE Consortium’s efforts to combat COVID-19, and both entities will focus on intra-African teamwork to improve vaccine delivery across the continent. The HOPE Consortium will rely on Astral Aviation’s extensive network, technologies, and industry knowledge to help it achieve its global goal of increasing vaccine distribution, especially to Africa.
Astral Aviation runs a diverse fleet of 14 freighter aircraft, provides innovative, flexible, and cost-effective UAV and UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) integrated drone-based solutions, as well as warehousing solutions to both in-store and remote sites. Astral has also been selected by UNICEF to perform vaccine flights for COVAX and the African Union via the African Medical Supplies Platform.
Robert Sutton Head- Logistic Cluster Abu Dhabi Ports
“Africa has always been a high priority market for the HOPE Consortium, and to that end, we are pleased to join hands with Astral Aviation. Our partnership with Astral Aviation is another benchmark towards our commitment to serving every country, region, and locale. We are confident that this partnership will help enhance HOPE Consortium’s efforts in Africa and ensure that no one is left behind in the quest against the pandemic.”
Astral will add further technological and warehousing solutions for the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines from the hub in Abu Dhabi, to all the 54 countries in Africa directly or via its Nairobi Hub, which occupies 9000m2 of cold-storage facilities.
Commenting on the partnership Mr. Sanjeev Gadhia, CEO of Astral Aviation said, “We are truly honored to partner with the HOPE Consortium and participate in the critical distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, based on our track record in performing humanitarian initiatives and vaccine flights within Africa.”
Through this partnership, the HOPE Consortium will expand its end-to-end supply chains required to distribute vaccines from their base in Abu Dhabi to all African countries. It has also geared its operations to transport millions of essential COVID-19 vaccines to any country in need, with over 100 million vaccine doses distributed across 40 countries so far.
