DHL Global Forwarding announced that it has transported newly approved Covid-19 antiviral pills to South Korea to bolster its fight against the ongoing pandemic.

The logistics Group has so far transportation of Covid-19 vaccines worldwide, shipping well over 1.8 billion shipments of vaccines across 174 countries.

"We're doing the same with the latest antiviral pills said to significantly lessen the severity of the disease for patients and the community. We are honored to deliver this important shipment to South Korea, the first country in Asia Pacific to receive the Covid -19 antiviral pills," said SP Song, managing director, DHL Global Forwarding Korea.

"Unlike the shipments of Covid-19 vaccines, which were required to be shipped under specific temperature and dry ice conditions, the transportation of the antiviral pills are akin to regular pharmaceutical goods transported at a range of 15-25 degree Celsius, requiring limited bespoke logistics arrangements," he added.

DHL noted that it managed the transport of the antiviral pills from the production sites in Germany to Belgium, where the shipment undergoes value-added thermal packaging before being transported to its destination in South Korea.

DHL said more than 9,000 life sciences and healthcare specialists work across DHL’s dedicated global network so that pharmaceutical, medical devices, clinical trials and research organizations, wholesalers and distributors, as well as hospitals and healthcare providers are connected across the value chain and through digitalization, from clinical trials to point of care, and every step in between.

To provide global coverage over the next two years, DHL estimated in its 2020 vaccine logistics white paper that up to 200,000 pallet shippers and 15 million cooling boxes, as well as 15,000 flights, will be required across the various supply chain setups.

In its whitepaper“Revisiting Pandemic Resilience,” DHL also estimated that from 2022 onwards, a further 7-9 billion vaccine doses are necessary annually to keep (re-)infection rates low and slow down the pace of virus mutations.