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Shipping Infectious Substances? 4 Questions You Must Ask Your Logistics Provider

Transporting Category A substances is complex and exhaustive. Your choice of Category A logistics provider should be just as thorough.

Regardless of which company moves your Category A shipments, responsibility for the safety of the shipment remains with you—even during shipping. But there are risks inherent in transportation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), shippers have reported incidents of damage to the tough outer packaging of infectious materials shipments. It can pay, therefore, to ensure that you have the right third-party logistics provider (3PL).

"The fact that the damaged packaging still safely retained its contents proves that the regulatory system works—but it also shows that not all logistics providers are the same," says Jeff Walsingham, healthcare strategy manager for UPS Category A shipping. "And their services are not always comparable," he adds.

Many labs and research organizations spend substantial time on compliance. But Walsingham believes they need to invest just as much effort in selecting a 3PL to transport their Category A substances. He recommends you ask current and prospective providers the following four questions. Fewer than four "yes" answers could indicate that you need a more specialized carrier to handle your Category A shipping.

1: Do you leverage technology and process controls to secure Category A pickups?

A competent 3PL will utilize fail-safe technology to help ensure that critical packages are reliably picked up, according to Walsingham. A package not picked up will not make its destination on time. “UPS offers proprietary technology that alerts our drivers to every Category A package,” he says. “Even if a Category A shipment is inadvertently not provided to a UPS driver by the shipper, the driver’s handheld device will issue a prompt to follow up about this during the pickup process.”

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