[ad_1]
FREEZER PARK: In a room the size of a football field in Puurs, Belgium, Pfizer stores ready-to-use vaccines. Doses must be at minus 70 degrees to stay stable. Photo: PFIZER
A lot should work when a corona vaccine is given to people in your municipality. At least if the vaccine must be stored and shipped in multiple minuses.
Imagine that two corona vaccines can already be approved in the EU and Norway at the end of December. Imagine that the planes with doses can arrive in Norway already in the new year.
That is what FHI is doing now. Because it is no small thing that it will work if the two vaccines that are about to be approved, in fact, will be. Here you can read about two nuts that are now working to crack.
The first is that they are both vaccines that are made using entirely new technology and require storage on ice to remain stable.
– What becomes demanding is when you are going to use vaccines that require storage and distribution at minus 70 degrees or minus 20 degrees, says area director Geir Bukholm at FHI.
First: What two vaccines are we talking about? Click on each one to read more about them:
When a vaccine is approved, this will happen:
- The manufacturer sends doses of vaccines to countries that have reserved them.
- FHI takes the doses in its central warehouse.
- FHI resends doses to your municipality.
FHI does this all the time – they get vaccines and they ship them across the country. Babies should be vaccinated against diphtheria and tetanus. Every winter, a flu vaccine is released.
– When it comes to routine vaccines that require regular cooling, we have good systems for that, says Geir Bukholm at FHI.
But now there may be a completely new type of vaccine.
Look at the list again and imagine that all those steps will be completed in minus 20 or 70 degrees.
CLEAR PLAN: – We have a clear plan for how vaccines will be shipped to each municipality, says Geir Bukholm, who runs FHI’s coronary vaccination program. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum
– The actual distribution to the place where this frozen vaccine will be received, we achieved it in a good way. What is required is from there until the vaccine is established, says Bukholm at FHI.
That is, from his municipality he receives a frozen dose until it is thawed and he puts it on his arm.
– According to the manufacturer, some of these vaccines can be stored for a short time at refrigerator temperature. This requires good planning and good coordination so that the people who will receive the vaccines are present at the vaccination site at the right time, says Bukholm at FHI.
– So the municipality of Oslo can, for example, receive 2000 doses and know that if they are not put on people’s arms within five days, they should be thrown away?
– Yes, but here we find solutions that prevent vaccine doses from being discarded, says Bukholm.
Nut two: the size of the packages
The challenges FHI now has to solve show that the devil is really in the details. The fact that we still don’t know which vaccine will arrive means that there are many “what if” and “if” plans to be made.
Another possible nut is: the size of the packages you receive from manufacturers can change plans.
DOSAGE: Both vaccines will likely require two doses, so the same person should receive the vaccine twice. Here you can see what the Pfizer dosages look like. Photo: PFIZER / X80001
The plan is for the doses to go directly from FHI to all municipalities.
But if the vaccines arriving in Norway, for example, are in 1,000-dose packages, it may be more than some municipalities need to vaccinate their risk groups.
To illustrate the challenge with constructed numbers: Imagine that one municipality needs 600 doses, another 1200 and there are only packages of 1000.
– So you have to repack at 70 degrees below zero?
– I don’t think we can. We are now working to find other good solutions for this. We must get back to the details of this work, says Geir Bukholm at FHI.
– For example, if we obtain a vaccine from Pfizer to distribute, we need more information from the manufacturer about which is the smallest package of vaccine. This can have an impact on the distribution chain, says the top of FHI.
also read
Study: Oxford vaccine is 70 percent effective
