POST 01133E : FRONT-OPENING REFRIGERATORS

POST 01132E : FRONT-OPENING REFRIGERATORS Follow-up on Post 01125E 3 August 2007 ____________________________________ This posting contains two contributions. The first is from Kaushik_B anerjee from WHO/HQ, and the second from Ian_Tansley from the United Kingdom. This last will likely provoke some reactions. Many if not a majority of us share the belief that refrigerator design is a question of efficiency without having necessarily consulted laboratory test results. Well what Ian says makes much sense. Maybe material proofs are needed, one way or the other. As for his suggestion, we are back to solar that we discussed recently, and not so convincingly. Comments then? ____________________________________ I think that is so because front opening fridges do not meet the 'hold-over time' specifications. Dr Kaushik Banerjee World Health Organization FCH/IVB/EPI ---------------------- Dear Dereje There are those who would have you believe that this is an issue of efficiency - "open the door and all the cold air falls out" - cold air does escape however our own tests and those of independent test laboratories give quite a different picture. The amount of heat energy contained in the air that escapes is actually very small compared with energy held by the solid objects (side walls, vaccine, ice packs) so in fact this is a myth. The real reason that top opening (chest type) refrigerators are popular is that the manufacturers are looking for the lowest cost solution and need to use standard formats of refrigerator to avoid high tooling costs. Most of the mass produced large capacity refrigerators/freezers are top opening and so these are adapted for vaccine stores. Anyone who has ever used both a front opening domestic refrigerator and has also used a top opening unit will verify that the front opening unit is far easier to use. For vaccine storage this means easier identification of batches and easier access - ultimately a safer system. A serious disadvantage of the top opening refrigerator follows from the last point. To see what you have in a top opening unit you must remove the product from the refrigerator compartment and bring it into the high ambient temperatures for some time. If anything will effect the efficiency and the temperature stability of the product it will be this. My experience of visiting rural clinics over the past 20 years or so tell me that making the process of identification, rotation and access to vaccines easier means a much smoother and safer cold chain. I should also like to point out that there are some manufaturers who do offer the more user friendly and that have WHO approval. For instance we have two solar powered refrigerators, both front opening listed in the on-line PIS (See E3/106-M and E3/109-M). Both these units have been specially designed for user convenience and super high efficiency. Although those offered are usually made for 12Vdc (battery power) we would be happy to supply these at 230Vac too. I hope this answers your question. Ian Tansley Director BRIGHT LIGHT SOLAR Ltd Tywyn, UK ______________________________________________________________________________ All members of the TechNet21 e-Forum are invited to send comments on any posting or to use the forum to raise a new discussion or request technical information in relation to immunization services. The comments made in this forum are the sole responsibility of the writers and do not in any way mean that they are endorsed by any of the organizations and agencies to which the authors may belong. ______________________________________________________________________________ Visit the TECHNET21 Website at http://www.technet21.org You will find instructions to subscribe, a direct access to archives, links to reference documents and other features. ______________________________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to : [[email protected]][email protected][/email] Leave the subject area BLANK In the message body, write unsubscribe TECHNET21E ______________________________________________________________________________ The World Health Organization and UNICEF support TechNet21. The TechNet21 e-Forum is a communication/information tool for generation of ideas on how to improve immunization services. It is moderated by Claude Letarte and is hosted in cooperation with the Centre de coopération internationale en santé et développement, Québec, Canada (www.ccisd.org ______________________________________________________________________________