Why Vaccine Cold Chain Monitoring is Critical

Vaccines are a key component in our health care system. One of the most cost-effective and efficient public health strategies is immunization. The end of many disease outbreaks can be directly attributed to the development of their respective vaccines. They have an immense societal contribution, which is why it is crucial that the delivery of vaccines through the cold chain is monitored and handled with the utmost care to ensure that the vaccine’s integrity is maintained all throughout its transport. The effectiveness of vaccines heavily relies on proper vaccine storage conditions. Vaccines are time and temperature sensitive. They are transported through a cold chain to ensure that their specific temperature needs are met at all times.

In a pharmaceutical context, the cold chain refers to the process of maintaining consistent temperatures for vaccines from manufacture through delivery to the healthcare facility. The cold chain starts from the cold storage unit located at the manufacturing plant and includes the transportation and delivery of the vaccine to the proper cold storage facility. It ends with the successful administration of the vaccine to the patient. Preparing the cold chain for vaccines is a massive challenge. At a glance, it may seem that a colder chain would be better for vaccines. However, over-chilling vaccines may result in a substantial financial loss and a counterproductive implementation of revaccination programs due to the infectivity of initially delivered vaccines. Aside from that, failure to properly deliver the vaccines may also lead to a patient’s loss of confidence in the vaccination program.

Cold chain staff should monitor the vaccines at each stop of the chain to ensure that the vaccine’s temperature is kept at the optimum range (2°C and 8°C or 36°F and 46°F). Meanwhile, freezers should give a temperature between -50°C and -15°C (-58°F and +5°F). Refrigerators and freezers should be set at the midpoint temperature to decrease the possibility of a temperature excursion to occur.

Ineffective vaccines cannot be used and need to be disposed of immediately. If a vaccine is not monitored accurately, it may result in loss of potency, degraded formula, product waste, financial loss, and the need to re-immunize patients.