Hi Nicholus,
Good morning from India. Thanks for showing interest on VC which is the last mile delivery platform and mejority of vaccine damage ( both cold and heat are due to vaccine career and frozen/ loose icepack. In India in an average cold chain point in Rural 12-15 VC are being send to outreached vaccination centre and avarage time taken is 30-45 minutes in 2 Wheeler. The VC return back to cold chain point at around 1 PM with avarage time out side cold chain point is in between 8 AM to 1 PM. In Urban India the period is almost same.
It means The VC should be designed in such a way that it become very light weight to carry on sholder strap ( current weight with vaccine and ice pack ) is about 2-3 KG -difficult to carry on foot
There is no provision for monitor the temp inside the VC with external windows for visibility. So VC should be designed with built in thrarmometer with accouracy
Although Health workers ( HW) was trained for conditioning of ice pack, but in practise it is not following, so there should be a layer between frozen ice packs and vaccine in pouch with no direct contact
Another issue of volume capacity. Currently due to introduction of so many vaccines the volume capacity is inadequate ( approx 25 vials of vaccine + diluents) , so it need to be augmented to atleast 40-50 in large VC and 25-30 in small VC
The current materials used is Polypropylene which itself has own weight. We can think of using other tough metal box yet very light weight.
Inside the VC there is always possibility of melting ice water which damage the vaccines and diluents. So there should be a mechanism of drainage of water
feel free to contact with me for any update - Dr Saumendra Bagchi ( [email protected])