India’s new crown epidemic hits the global shipping industry

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The wave of Covid-19 infection in India has hit the international shipping industry. The international shipping industry relies on the country to provide seafarers because the crew is infected with the disease and the port refuses to enter the ship.
Notices from the maritime authorities indicate that ports including Singapore and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates prohibit ships from replacing crew members who have recently travelled from India. According to the crew supplier Williamson Ship Management Company, Zhoushan, China, has banned the entry of ships or crew members that have visited India or Bangladesh in the past three months.
Industry executives also stated that despite the isolation and testing before boarding, the crew from India tested positive for Covid-19 on the ship.
“Earlier, our ship infected one or two people,” said Rajesh Unni, CEO of the Singapore-based Synergy Marine Group, which provides services to the crew. “Today, we encountered a situation where the entire ship was quickly infected… This means that the ship itself is immobile.”
India on Thursday reported more than 410,000 Covid-19 infections and nearly 4,000 deaths the previous day. The surge in cases broke global records and overwhelmed the health system.
The South African Port Authority said a ship that arrived in Durban from India this week was quarantined after 14 Filipino crew members tested positive for Covid-19. The chief engineer of this ship died of a heart attack.
Like the Philippines and China, India is one of the largest sources of seafarers in the world. According to data from the industry body, the International Chamber of Shipping, there are an estimated 1.6 million seafarers worldwide, of which approximately 240,000 are from the country
Singapore, a major shipping hub, has expanded the scope of the ban to cover crew members from countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
According to United Nations data, executives warned that these restrictions could have an impact on the tight shipping industry, which transports 80% of global trade.
Mark O’Neil, president of InterManager, who represents the crew management industry, said that the blockage of the Suez Canal in March “is nothing compared to the [supply chain] disruption caused by the inability to replace crews.”
Last summer, due to the pandemic, about 400,000 seafarers were stranded at sea beyond the contract period. Although this number has declined, concerns are increasing due to the surge in global coronavirus cases since March.
Niels Bruus, head of marine human resources at Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, said: “If travel restrictions continue, we may once again fall into a situation similar to the global crew replacement crisis that occurred in 2020.”.
“When it comes to crew changes, the situation gets worse. This is an understatement,” said Carl Schou, CEO of Williamson, whose approximately 10,000 employees are 15% from India .
The Norwegian company ceased crew changes in India at least at the end of May from April 24. Schou added that because “India’s entire health system has basically collapsed”, the results of the Covid-19 test for Indian sailors did not get their scheduled departure time in time.
The German crew management group Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement stated that it is temporarily recruiting seafarers from other countries to replace Indians who disembark or plan to board the ship.
Shipping industry executives said that because countries have introduced inoculation requirements for entry, they need to give priority to seafarers in the global vaccination plan. But they are frustrated by the slow progress in efforts to ensure the jab through the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency responsible for shipping.
“We were just surprised by this vaccination issue because of bureaucracy and political ping-pong,” O’Neill said.
Abdulgani Serang, secretary-general of the National Seamen’s Union of India, said he believes that the authorities have not done enough to vaccinate Indian seamen: “We have let them down.”


Post time: Jun-04-2021