Transporting Vaccine Between Stores: Changing Choices

With the possible exception of disposal, transport is the most neglected aspect of the vaccine supply chain in spite of its reputation for accidental freezing of vaccines, unreliable availability and high operational costs. So, I hope you will join us in discussing work in progress: At the vaccine manufacturers to switch to pallet based, large capacity tertiary packing in response to increasing vaccine volumes to ship and higher costs of shipment At the manufacturers of cold boxes to eliminate the risk of accidental freezing and achieve greater vaccine capacity per box and less overall volume to transport At WHO and UNICEF to test and document new standard operating procedures that ‘streamline’ the process of preparing and loading vaccine but demanding tighter temperature monitoring. WHO will publish a guide on vaccine transport later this year. But to ‘kick-start’ discussion, this short paper summarises some of the changes under way and we invite your critical advice!