Thursday, 04 August 2011
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To update the Multi-Dose Vial Policy, WHO and the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (IPAC) has been designing a "visual cue". This is a small logo that will be placed on vaccine vials to allow health workers to judge whether to discard the vial at the end of a session, or allow the health worker to keep the opened vial under cold chain conditions. To finalize this however, we would like to pilot test the visual cue in a country. Ideally, this would be done over one year in a developing country that is introducing a vaccine presented in a multi-dose. These vials would be marked with the visual cue, and training provided to health worker on its use. Subsequently, the knowledge and practice of health workers in respet of the keeping or discarding of a vial would be tested. If you know of such a planned vaccine introduction, we would like to see if this country may be able to be selected. Your inputs would be most appreciated.
12 years ago
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#2213
Thanks, David. As you rightly point out, the safety concerns are the most important consideration when we established the multi-dose vial policy (MDVP), and that is the main reason why we are now moving to the visual cue, which will clearly indicate to the health worker if it is safe to keep multidose vials open for subsequent sessions or not. Clearly, this also remains within the context of normal antiseptic practices. I agree that the two main benefits of the functioning MDVP are a reduction in cold storage space (as you can use multi-dose vials) and the reduction of wastage (as you can use some vaccines in multidose vials until they are used up, without wastage). So this clearly leads to reduced cost in developing countries.
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