The aggregate percentage of seafarers who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 has passed the 20% mark, figures compiled by the world’s top 10 ship managers show.
The level reached 21.9% in September, up from 15.3% in August, according to the Neptune Declaration on Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change.
“New numbers suggest that programmes set up to offer vaccines to international seafarers, especially in the US and some European countries, are starting to kick in,” the Neptune Declaration said.
Kasper Sogaard, managing director, head of institutional strategy & development, at the Global Maritime Forum, the body behind the Neptune Declaration, welcomed the development, while saying there was “room for improvement”.
“It is very encouraging to see that the number of seafarers who have been vaccinated has increased by 6.6% in the last month,” he said.
But he also pointed out that seafarer vaccination rates remain behind rates in large shipping nations in Europe, North America and Asia, where more than half of the population is fully vaccinated.
Despite the progress, ship managers said there continues to be limited access to Covid-19 vaccines for seafarers due to supply issues.
Reluctance to get vaccinated
Furthermore, ensuring access to the second dose of the vaccine remains a challenge and, in many cases, there is a significant gap between the two doses for seafarers. Ship managers also report reluctance by some seafarers to get vaccinated.
Ship managers have, for the first time, said they are facing a shortage of seafarers and cite travel restrictions for Indian mariners and the European summer holiday period as causes.
Still governments and ports are said to be placing stricter crew change requirements that have resulted in the cancellation of changeovers.
“Travel restrictions, flight cancellations and domestic lockdowns continue to prevent seafarers from going back home,” the ship managers said.
One bright spot to emerge from the Neptune Declaration’s latest crew-change indicator report is that after months of deterioration, the number of seafarers on board vessels beyond the expiry of their contract has decreased slightly from 9% to 8.9% in the past month.
Similarly, the number of seafarers on board vessels for more than 11 months — the maximum period allowed under the Maritime Labour Convention — fell from 1.3% to 1.2%.
Ship managers Anglo-Eastern, Bernhard Schulte, Columbia Shipmanagement, Fleet Management, OSM, Synergy Marine, Thome, V.Group, Wallem and Wilhelmsen Ship Management, which contribute to the crew-change indicator, collectively have about 90,000 seafarers currently at sea.
