“This warehouse is cool – for many reasons,” – this is how billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates captioned his 1-minute video post on his twitter account.
This warehouse is cool – for many reasons. pic.twitter.com/siqvwnzo2D
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 19, 2022
The footage shows highlights of Gates inspecting the Abu Dhabi’s Hope Consortium, the warehouse where millions of COVID-19 vaccines are being developed and transported to remote countries.
“It’s very modern it’s got a lot of great refrigeration capacity. Things are tracked very well,” said Gates who can be seen standing in front of the warehouse located at KIZAD Zone, Abu Dhabi.
“It’s impressive to see millions of covid vaccines in one place and think that we’re trying to deliver billions of these vaccines,” said Gates as the video shows the large facility and shelves full of well-refrigerated vaccines.
He lauded how the facility is being run knowing the complexity of how vaccines should be stored and handled.
“Most vaccines spoil at room temperature. And so, depending on the vaccine it either has to be below eight degrees or it might have to, like some of the newer vaccines, be even colder,” he said.
Gates notes that having this state-of-the-art facility shows how people “stepped up for this pandemic” and “can help a lot” especially in providing vaccines to rural areas.
“Having an intermediate stock like this can help a lot,” he added.
It was June last year when The Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) and the HOPE Consortium signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support the UAE’s global efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abu Dhabi’s 19,000sqm temperature-controlled warehouse facility is the largest cold and ultra-cold chain storage facility in the region.
In Hope Consortium’s website, they said that the aim is to increase the HOPE Consortium supply chain’s capacity to handle 18 billion vaccine doses per year.
