POST 01257E: REPAIR/NON-REPAIR OF COLD CHAIN EQUIPMENT

POST 01257E: REPAIR/NON-REPAIR OF COLD CHAIN EQUIPMENT 23 APRIL 2008 Follow up on post: POST 01254E Recent posts on cold chain equipment and maintenance: 01229E, 01227E, 01226E, 01225E, 01221E, 01218, 01216, 01214E ******************************************* There has been almost no response to Mogens Munck’s suggestion of not repairing cold chain equipment or only repairing equipment that has been pooled in advance at an easily accessible place, except for this one. Definitely, this is a topic which needs to be debated much more than it has been on the e-forum? ----------------------- Quoted Text:  Dear Moderator, Here is my position on "Repair/non-repair" cold chain equipment  I would go for “repair always” even if this seems to be more expensive than to purchase new equipment. The reason for that is to keep the cold chain with vaccines functioning all the time, to continue to immunize children (avoid stock-outs) and reduce vaccine wastage rates, especially in big and poor countries with very limited geographic access to some areas. In addition, it is not always easy to find a donor to purchase new cold chain equipment.  However, the decision to be made may depend on the type of cold chain equipment available in the country, the location of the cold chain material (urban versus rural area) and of the estimated costs of the materials in the country.  In DRC, for example, last year’s inventory has shown approximately 72% of cold chain equipment to be absorption refrigerators, 23% compression refrigerators and just 5% solar refrigerators. The delivery cost within the country for a compression refrigerator is estimated to be $800 while the intervention for repair (fully change of compressor or Freon re-fill) will at the maximum cost about $ 250. However, this situation requires very highly skilled and qualified personnel (available just in big cities).  At the national and provincial levels, in most cases, EPI managers mostly sign a contract of maintenance with a skilled technician and he can manage. Dear Moderator, 0Quoted Text: Dear Moderator, 1Quoted Text: Dear Moderator, 2Quoted Text: Dear Moderator, 3Quoted Text: Dear Moderator, 4Quoted Text: Dear Moderator, 5Quoted Text: Dear Moderator, 6 Post generated using Mail2Forum (http://www.mail2forum.com)