by Yuchuan Wang

On Feb. 9, JD Logistics, JD.com’s logistics arm, began the voluntary transportation of China’s COVID-19 vaccine in Yizhuang, the Economic-Technological Development Area in the south of Beijing. JD will handle the last-mile delivery of the vaccine from a government-designated transfer warehouse to the vaccination points in the area.

JD’s cold chain logistics system ensures the whole procedure of distribution is traceable and controllable. All vaccines are transported between 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. The company’s cold chain monitoring platform will monitor and record real-time location and refrigerator temperature and report abnormal situations immediately.

JD has several ongoing projects concerning the COVID-19 vaccine transportation, and is expected to transport the vaccine in more regions after the Chinese New Year holiday. In January, JD added a dedicated pharmaceuticals warehouse in Shenyang, Liaoning province to its over 800 warehouse network nationwide. The company is also building cold chain sorting centers for pharmaceutical products in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Xi’an and Shenyang.

“JD is among the first of third party companies to develop pharmaceutical logistics, and has been committed to building its integrated pharmaceutical cold chain services,” said a JD Logistics representative. “In the future, JD Logistics will further leverage its advantages in logistics infrastructure, network and capacity, apply advanced technologies and continue investment in this area to drive innovation in the industry. We hope to work with up and downstream partners to build an efficient pharmaceutical cold chain system and help the industry reduce costs.”

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)