The first tentative steps towards establishing Covid-19 vaccination hubs for seafarers has got off the ground.

The idea was discussed at the International Maritime Organization as a potential solution to returning hundreds of seafarers stranded in Brazil and Europe to their homes in the remote Pacific Islands.

Ports in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand offered themselves as possible crew transfer and vaccination hubs in an attempt to repatriate ships' crews from Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga.

Covid free

Vaccination centres were needed because the islands of Samoa and Tonga have managed to stay free of Covid-19. Ensuring seafarers were not carrying the disease was considered an important part of the package to repatriate them.

The discussions represented the first formal government and industry-level talks on developing the concept of crew-change hub ports with a view to extend them to become vaccination centres.

“The IMO was actively engaged in developing the idea of seafarer hubs and how they might work in the Pacific region,” one participant told TradeWinds.

The hope is for those discussions to be the start of broader negotiations on establishing a wider global network of vaccination hubs.

Hundreds of thousands of seafarers are still struggling to return home, or join ships, because of the travel and quarantine restrictions in place to stop the spread of coronavirus.

As TradeWinds exclusively reported, an industry working group led by the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) is attempting to secure vaccines for seafarers from the Covax scheme.

The Covax scheme was established by the World Health Organization (WHO) to supply vaccines to developing countries.

The industry is arguing to the WHO that seafarers need to be prioritised for vaccination as they play a critical role in the transportation of personal protective equipment and vaccines. While seafarers are working away at sea they are also unable to access their own domestic vaccination programmes.

"While some countries are well ahead of others in their vaccine roll-out programmes, many nations have not even started to vaccinate their citizens. Seafarers must not be put to the back of the queue," ICS secretary general Guy Platten recently told TradeWinds.

UK Chamber of Shipping secretary general Guy Platten says seafarers should not be at the back of the vaccination queue. Photo: June Essex/LISW

If the industry is successful in persuading the WHO, then the IMO will be the forum through which governments can agree a fair and workable method of distributing the vaccine, by developing a global network of major port vaccination hubs.

Highly political

The management and distribution of vaccines, as recent events have shown, can be highly political and create international tensions.

But the shipping industry’s attempt to secure a supply will still need the cooperation of governments to assist in distribution.

“It is important that governments are seen to be in control, the shipping industry does not want to be accused of taking advantage of the Covax scheme and diverting vaccines away from third-world countries,” a source close to the discussions said.

There also needs to be a global consensus on which vaccines would be acceptable to all governments and this can likely only be achieved through United Nations organisations such as the IMO.

Currently, the European Union does not recognise Russia's Sputnik V and China's Sinovac vaccines. There also needs to be an international standard form of seafarer vaccination certification that would allow mariners to travel freely.

The Philippines and Singapore are likely to play a key role in the network of vaccine hubs in Asia.

While the supply of vaccines remains monopolised by governments, shipping companies have little chance of securing their own supplies.

There have been attempts by individual companies to secure vaccine supplies independently.

There has also been talk of some private shipping and manning companies attempting to cooperate with the Philippines government to secure supplies.

The companies are offering to assist in the Philippines domestic inoculation programmes by sponsoring a fixed number of vaccinations in return for being given the same amount for their own use.

Some companies have also claimed to have secured their own supplies of vaccine although, because supply is in the hands of governments, there are doubts over whether this has been done legally, or whether the vaccines are genuine.