Pablo Sigal
06/14/2021 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 06/14/2021 6:00 AM
When evaluating the cost of
coronavirus
vaccines
, not only the price of each dose is important. It is also key how much the logistics adds to the final price. The most
efficient
vaccine
of all, in that sense, has been the
Covishield
. Among those available in Argentina, followed by
that of
Sinopharm
and finally stands
Sputnik V
.
Clarín
compared the costs of
the flights
that brought each batch and reached that conclusion by evaluating the price per kilometer traveled for each dose: in the case of the Sinopharm vaccine, that cost is
0.00034 cents
(3.4 dollars per 10,000 vaccines);
With Sputnik V, the value is
0.00041 cents
(4.1 per 10,000).
Moscow, where Sputnik V are loaded to bring them to Ezeiza, is
17,334
air
kilometers
from Buenos Aires.
Beijing is
18,898 kilometers from
Argentina
.
This means that, although the route is 1,564 kilometers shorter, bringing the doses from Russia is
20.6 percent more expensive
than doing it from China.
The analysis was carried out based on public information, in which the Government details the cost of each flight made.
What does not appear there is
how many doses each plane brought
, something that
Clarín
crossed in each case with information that is also public.
From there these contrasts arise.
The question is why this happens.
Sources from Aerolineas Argentinas associated it with the
"efficiency of logistics"
that each vaccine allows.
“With Sinopharm it was possible to bring up to a million doses in a single flight.
With Sputnik V the average is 500 thousand and the maximum that was reached was 800 thousand ”.
Looking at the list of flights and the cargo they brought, the first batch that arrived from Russia in December contained only
300,000 doses
($ 304,570 was paid), which were those that were available at that time.
The following flights from Moscow, in January and February, were for
300,000, 220,000 and 400,000 doses.
The first shipment from China, on the other hand, was
904 thousand vaccines
(428 thousand dollars were paid).
And then there were two more flights of
a million doses each
in early and late April.
The remaining 1 million of those first 4 million purchased from Sinopharm arrived on three more flights.
This means that, in total, there were
6 trips
.
In the case of Sputnik V, it took
10 flights
to complete the same number of doses
.
This brings the cost of the trip per vaccine to
$ 0.72
for Sputnik V and
$ 0.65
for Sinopharm.
That is, 10 percent more than the Russian one.
But if that is articulated with the difference in kilometers between one source and another, the percentage
doubles
.
The price difference for the transfer, if calculated on the 20 million doses that the initial contract with the Gamaleya Institute has, would give a total of
1,394,460 dollars
.
When translating that into the number of Russian vaccines, the cost of the "inefficiency" would be about
140 thousand doses
.
The most efficient vaccine from the logistical point of view was the Covishield, which despite having arrived from India (15,917 kilometers away) the freight price per dose was
0.04 cents
.
This means
0.0000025 cents
per kilometer traveled, or $ 2.5 per million doses.
Why does the Sinopharm allow greater logistics efficiency than Sputnik V and, in turn, the Covishield allow even greater savings than the other two?
There are
three causes
that explain this, associated with the
conditions
that the Vladimir Putin administration imposes on countries that want to use the Russian vaccine.
The first cause is the
availability of doses
that the Gamaleya Institute has every time Argentine planes come to fly Sputnik to Buenos Aires.
The second, the
way in which
the doses
are presented
.
Finally, the
refrigeration
requirements
of each brand.
“When Sputnik comes in one dose per vial,
300 thousand doses
enter an airplane
.
When five doses per vial come in, up to 800 thousand come in.
In the case of Covishield, there are 10 doses per vial.
This allows them to be brought in on a scheduled flight, in the belly of the plane, which implies a great
reduction in cost
”, they explained from Airlines.
The other key point is the technology used for cooling.
In the case of Sputnik V, this requirement takes up almost more space than the volume of the vaccines themselves.
They should be stored at a temperature of
-18 to -20 degrees
.
The Chinese need between
2 and 8 degrees
.
The Sputnik arrive in
“thermobox”
type containers
and require an additional refrigeration load.
Those from Sinopharm, on the other hand, have
“envirotainer”
technology
, which uses a battery to cool the vaccines and that means that the net dose content can be higher in the same space.
President Alberto Fernández at the reception of the latest Chinese vaccines so far, on April 29.
Photo: Presidency
The transfer of the Chinese vaccine, however, also had its flats.
When each box contained three vials of one dose,
a million
could be transported
per flight
.
Later, when the availability was single vial boxes, the volume tripled and that increased the logistical need.
Another limitation of the Chinese vaccine is that the manufacturer requires that the thermobox container can only be transported
in the hold
and never in the cabin of the plane.
Sputnik V does allow it.
Even so, the balance shows that the costs of the Chinese vaccine have been
more convenient
than those of the Russian one.
For this reason, when the Government asks that they
“close the account”
of each vaccine, the price differences between one and the other are reduced.
The cost of each Russian dose (10 dollars), when adding the transfer bonus is no
longer half
that of the Chinese (20 dollars).
Availability to board
In terms of the number of
doses available at the point of origin
, the Chinese batches have been more generous than the Russian ones.
That's tied to how much the provider was able to deliver to get the most out of each flight.
Sometimes the planes came back from Russia
full
.
Others,
baggy
because there were no more vaccines to bring.
"They tell us
go and go,
" they explain in the flag airline about the orders that the Ministry of Health entrusts to them. Since the operation to bring vaccines began, there were weeks in which several flights were brought together within a
few days of each other
. The official explanation is that if Argentina does not seek them at the right time, those doses
may end up in another country.
From the original contract, it still remains to bring
just over half
of the doses purchased from Russia. For Sinopharm, a new contract was announced for 6 million vaccines that would arrive between June and July. The good news is that the Chinese supplier this time will make an even more efficient packaging, which will allow to put
two million
doses per plane. The
logistics
cost gap
with Sputnik will be even larger.
From AstraZeneca there will be some 17 million pending doses -of the total 22.4 million-, after the last arrivals of almost two million between this Sunday and Monday.
In addition, trips are now
shorter
: it is no longer the Covishield from India, but the vaccine whose active ingredient is manufactured in Argentina and packaged in the United States or Mexico.
$
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