FOLLOWING successful COVID-19 vaccinations of Belgian seafarers that started on 2 June, Belgium is moving to another level with a proposal by the Deputy Prime Minister Vincent van Quickenborne, the Royal Belgian Shipowners’ Association and the Directorate-General of Shipping.

The Vaccination Task Force and the Interministerial Conference on Public Health started a vaccination campaign from 26 July onward for all seafarers arriving in a Belgian port, regardless of their nationality.

In order to give this hard-to-reach target group the maximum opportunity to be vaccinated, roving medical teams will go onboard the vessels in the ports. This makes Belgium the first country in the world to provide the vaccination for seafarers in this way.

However, other countries including Australia have been calling for a similar approach as well as shipping line MSC.

Every year, more than 5500 ships of various types dock in Belgium’s international ports, and together around 80,000 seafarers work onboard. These seafarers live at sea in closed groups for extended periods – a precarious situation should there be a COVID-19 outbreak onboard.

In addition, a large number of these seafarers come from countries where COVID-19 vaccination is currently insufficient or unavailable to seafarers.

This concerns seafarers who are:

  • staying and working onboard a vessel docked in a Belgian port, or
  • arriving in Belgium in order to board a vessel docked in a Belgian port (signing-on); or,
  • leaving the vessel docked in a Belgian port in order to return to their home country via Belgium (signing-off).

Roving vaccination teams have been set up to go onboard the vessels in the ports to perform the inoculation under the supervision of Mediport and with the assistance of hospitals of the Gasthuisgroep Antwerpen. Taking into account the one-off visit to a Belgian port and the logistical challenges, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine – as a single-dose vaccine – is the most appropriate one.

Together with Germany and the United States, Belgium is one of the only countries that are inoculating foreign seafarers, and the only one in the world to do so onboard vessels using mobile medical teams.

Mr Van Quickenborne said, “The fight against COVID-19 is not limited to Belgium, it is a global effort. In response to this global emergency, Belgium as a country with the world’s largest ports, is taking the lead in making vaccines accessible to all seafarers who arrive by sea.

“We call on other countries to likewise prioritise the vaccination of this essential group. Only then can the continuity of global trade be guaranteed.”