Despite intense global efforts to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution, many of these doses are still not reaching people’s arms, with hundreds of thousands of vaccines being wasted. A leading cause of vaccine wastage is exposure to inappropriate temperatures during cold chain storage. Chase Heibel at Thermo Fisher Scientific discusses that a new international standard will help healthcare providers to select high-performance refrigerators and freezers with the precise temperature control necessary to protect the quality and integrity of the vaccines stored inside.
Extract:
‘Minimising Vaccine Wastage with Advanced Refrigerator and Freezer Technologies’
A leading cause of vaccine wastage is exposure to inappropriate temperatures during cold chain storage. A new international standard will help healthcare providers to select high-performance refrigerators and freezers with the precise temperature control necessary to protect the quality and integrity of the vaccines stored inside.
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has catalysed an unprecedented acceleration in vaccine research and development. In less than a year from the identification of the novel viral pathogen, the first vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 gained emergency approval from regulators in several countries after demonstrating high efficacy in clinical trials. The use of innovative vaccine platforms, such as novel mRNA technologies, has played a huge part in this remarkable success story.
While the development of COVID-19 vaccines brings hope of a way out of this global crisis, success also hinges on their efficient and rapid rollout to the world’s population. The new vaccine technologies bring new challenges to this already daunting task, not least with managing the vaccine cold chain. Comprised of cold rooms, freezers, refrigerators and transportation boxes, the complex global network contains many components that must keep products at an appropriate temperature on their journey from the manufacturing line to the patient.
Despite intense global efforts to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution, many of these doses are still not reaching people’s arms, with hundreds of thousands of vaccines being wasted. The US’ Centers for Disease Control (CDC) alone recorded 182,874 wasted COVID-19 vaccine doses as of late March 2021. More broadly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates up to 50% of all vaccine doses are wasted each year. A leading cause of vaccine wastage is exposure to inappropriate temperatures during the cold chain.
Click the download button below to read the complete version of ‘Minimising Vaccine Wastage with Advanced Refrigerator and Freezer Technologies’ by Chase Heibel at Thermo Fisher Scientific
