POST 00571E : VACCINE FREEZING IN COLD CLIMATES

POST 00571E : VACCINE FREEZING IN COLD CLIMATES 14 June 2003 _____________________________________________ First a technical note. A few members have reported that whole postings or attachments to postings have been blocked/deleted as spams or suspicious material. Spams have become a real pest and servers are increasingly equipped with filtering devices. Some of these overdo it presuming that all LISTSERV mailings are spams. Nothing can be done on our side. Sending the message again to individual members will end up in the same way. The only thing that can be tried is to contact your server and discuss the problem, they may be able to adjust manually. _______________ This posting contains 4 contributions. The first is from G. R. Baru (mailto:[log in to unmask]) from India and he makes some suggestions. I was wrong about the refrigerators; those that could warm as well do exist but we cannot really say that they are available on the market. Both Søren Spanner (mailto:[log in to unmask]) and Michel Zaffran (mailto:[log in to unmask]) mention some models in their respective contributions. Finally in the fourth contribution, Alejo Bejemino (mailto:[log in to unmask]) gives suggestions from his experience in Afghanistan on how to handle the issue. _____________________________________________ It looks very nice to discuss issues of freezing of vaccines in a meeting or class room. But we all know that issue of freezing of vaccine is noticed mostly at PHC or below to that . Vaccine is not freezing in refrigerators only but more than that in cold boxes and vaccine carriers. It means, no EPI equipment can prevent freezing of vaccine if vaccine handler and his supervisor is not well trained on storage, transportation of vaccines and proper use of equipment. I have very closely observed vaccine related issues during my 13 years of service with UNICEF India and based on this experience, MOHFW & UNICEF India had developed a very comprehensive module during 2002 which addresses all vaccine temperature related issues. But the problem is ensuring training quality and closely monitoring the implementation of training instructions(electronic copy of module can be shared on specific demand). Regarding freezing of vaccine even outside cold chain equipment in hilly regions, I would suggest that during winter season vaccines may be kept in cold boxes without frozen/partially frozen ice packs, on a case by case basis (depending upon ambient temperature). Or vaccine can be stored in refrigerators which may be kept "switched off", if needed. However regular monitoring & management of temperature of these vaccine containers have to be ensured by a well trained vaccine handler. G R Baru Ex- PO(Cold Chain) UNICEF India ________________________________________ The problem is the same in a number of cold climate countries. Health centers etc. are not heated during winter especially weekends or holidays. Vaccines do freeze. It can be helped, if you have electricity, by inserting a small heating element (20W or so) which if course must be thermostatically controlled. We, at UNICEF Supply Division, are starting tests with ILRs including heating elements and thermostats at the Danish Technical Institute. I believe that we should have special specs for cold climate countries. It is much more difficult when talking about kerosene or gas refrigerators. The new Solar Chill (approx US$ 1,500) that will be tested in a number of warm countries should, in fact, also be tested in cold climates. A heating element could easily be included in this system. This type of system will be a perfect replacement for big and bulky kerosene refrigerators in countries like Bhutan as Anil is mentioning. "warm" regards, Søren Spanner _______________________________________ Some time ago Electrolux designed a military version of the RCW 42 which has both cooling and warming elements precisely for the purpose described by Anil. I am not sure whether they are still on the market but they were obviously designed and manufactured to military specs and were therefore quite costly. If Pascal Vannier of Dometic is a subscriber to Technet 21 (“I’m afraid he is not?â€