Strict safety requirements when the covid vaccine is to be transported

Published: December 05, 2020 at 6:59 p.m.

From: Natalia Kazmierska

Published: December 05, 2020 at 6:59 p.m.

Personnel handling corona vaccine may need to undergo suitability testing. Even warehouses where hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of vaccine doses will be stored, must meet strict safety requirements.

This is stated in documents from the Swedish Public Health Agency.

– There are potential risks with this type of handling, says Tobias Jamtehov, responsible buyer.

In early January, Sweden hopes to have received the first doses of the covid-19 vaccine. According to the procurement documents of the Swedish Public Health Agency, strict demands are placed on distributors, who are given responsibility for storing and transporting the vaccine into the country.

– The ordinary transports of vaccines are quite small, here we have many that enter. Potentially, there will be doses for all of Sweden, which means that there may be someone who wants to sabotage or things like that. There is a little difference when it comes to a healthcare facility that receives hundreds of doses, compared to millions of doses, says Tobias Jamtehov, a procurement manager for the Swedish Public Health Agency.

Photo: Jerica Pitts / AP

In these freezers, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer stores its vaccine against Covid-19.

There may be an image of threat

Employees working with nationwide vaccine distribution and logistics may need to undergo a security check. “Measures should be taken with regard to information security, physical security and personnel safety,” the authority writes in the documents.

However, they don’t want to go into exactly how safe handling differs from, say, the annual flu shot. According to Christer Janson, head of security at the Swedish Public Health Agency, there is careful planning around the security issue, but the details are confidential.

– Safety requirements may differ from other types of vaccines due to threat image and social benefit. Safety tests are not sure that they are always necessary, but if necessary, it is to ensure that those who work with vaccines are fit for the task and that they are reliable. We cannot comment on what threats might exist, he says.

“So it is important that the vaccine is blocked”

The vaccine is likely to be brought to a central warehouse in Sweden and further afield in the regions by truck. The acquisition requires that the warehouses must contain 50 places of vaccine dose pallets at a chilling temperature, and also keep the vaccine at a freezing temperature of minus 20 degrees.

If the Pfizer company and the Biontech vaccine are approved in the EU, instead, freezers are required that go down to minus 70. Such possibilities exist mainly in hospitals, but also in, for example, research laboratories. The regions are now taking an inventory of the number of extreme frosts.

Anna Söderström, Director of Health and Medical Care in the Västra Götaland region, says that it is not yet clear what the safety arrangement will look like regarding the transport of the vaccine within the region.

– In case there is a shortage situation, it is very important that the vaccine is really blocked, if there may be other forces that want a vaccine in another place than the place where we intend to administer it. But as it is seen now, we do not think that we end up in a situation of scarcity, but that we receive vaccines that are enough for those who want to be vaccinated.

Published: December 05, 2020 at 6:59 p.m.

Published: December 05, 2020 at 6:59 p.m.