Vaccination of Seafarers

In 2021, Covid-19 continued to significantly impact life on board. Organising crew changes remained quite a challenge, as countries banned signing on and off or made crew movements towards and from the vessels impossible in practice.

Shipowners often had to deviate from their intended sailing routes to swap their crews. These operational changes caused much extra expenditure. Additionally, intended crew changes were often compromised, as planned crew suddenly tested positive to the virus and the shipowner was unable to get crew that had tested negative to the new location in time.

The continuous delaying of crew swaps increased mental pressure on seafarers who had already signed on. Moreover, crew were restricted in their freedom of movement, as shore leave was rarely granted. Crew morale suffered, even more so since they were deprived of any social safety net. As a result, shipowners called in external organizations to provide 24/7 psychological assistance to seafarers in need of such support.

As soon as it became clear, in late 2020, that approved vaccines against Covid-19 would soon become available on the market, the Belgian authorities developed a vaccination strategy, determining which groups would be vaccinated and when. Thereupon, the RBSA insisted with the authorities that a separate vaccination effort should be developed for seafarers, using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Because of the specific nature of their job, seafarers are not often at home. Therefore, there was a very real risk that they would not be in the country when the opportunity arose to get vaccinated. And even if they happened to be at home in time to get a first dose of the vaccine, it was highly unlikely that they would still be there at the time of the second scheduled vaccination (for vaccines requiring double vaccination).

On 2 June 2021, the vaccination campaign for Belgian seafarers was launched. Both at Mediport (doctor Verbist) and with doctor Vandamme, seafarers could – they still can – get inoculated. Belgium was the first European country to vaccinate seafarers as a separate category. The vaccination campaign met with instant, overwhelming success.

Shortly thereafter, the Vaccination Taskforce and the Interministerial Conference for Public Health developed a plan, upon a proposal by the Vice Prime Minister and Minister for the North Sea, the Royal Belgian Shipowners’ Association and the Directorate-general for Shipping, to vaccinate all seafarers, irrespective of their nationality.

Seafarers who:

• resided and worked on board of an ocean-going vessel in a Belgian port, or
• arrived in Belgium to go on board of an ocean-going vessel in a Belgian port, or,
• left the ship in a Belgian port to return to their home country by way of Belgium

were entitled to vaccination. Roving vaccination teams were created to go on board of ocean-going vessels in Belgian ports.

Vaccinations were generally performed on board of ships, under the supervision of Mediport and with the assistance of hospitals from the Gasthuis Group in Antwerp.

For these seafarers as well, the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was chosen.

Belgium wanted to vaccinate all seafarers, because the virus had the potential to be carried swiftly to other ports and virus variants would then spread quickly all over the planet. Seafarer vaccination reduced this risk considerably.

In this respect, Belgium once again played a pioneering role. Belgium, Germany and the United States were the first countries to vaccinate foreign seafarers.

As soon as it became clear that the WHO was offering a booster vaccine, foreign seafarers could also benefit from it