Gov’t to tender for specialised freezers for COVID vaccines

Government says it is already making plans to store COVID 19 vaccines once these become available. Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony said that there are plans to extend several of the existing facilities and procure additional specialised freezers.

“Some of the COVID vaccines that are coming out, they have special temperature requirements, so for example with the Pfizer vaccine you have to store it at -70 and for the Moderna vaccine it is at -20,” Dr Anthony said.

The existing freezers in the public health system may not be able to store some of these vaccines.

“We don’t have any of those -70 freezers, we have to increase the physical space and we have started that process,” the minister said.

An evaluation was done of the several regional storage facilities as the government eyes expanding those for storage of these vaccines. The government plans to also created special cards for these vaccines.

“The date when you receive your first dose, how much you received, the next date you have to come back to get your 2ns dose,” the Health Minister said would be among the details recorded.

Minister Anthony anticipates that the tenders for the expansion as well as acquisition of the specialised freezers would go out very soon.

The government envisages training for its staff on storage of these vaccines as well as training to raise awareness about the use of the vaccines.

The UK started using the vaccine created by Pfizer, several prioritised groups have already benefited from this vaccine. Moderna’s vaccine will be reviewed by the FDA later this month.