Monthly Archives: September 2012

Cold Chain Vaccines and Their Transportation

Cold chain is basically a mechanism, which is used to transport medicines, vaccines and even foods in a controlled temperature. Cold chain temperature indicator is used to make sure that medicines are always inside the designated temperature.

Why cold chain is important?

Cold chain is very important while delivering pharmaceuticals for several reasons. Medicines might get dissolved due to the exposure to extreme temperature. Use of cold chain gives an assurance or confidence in potent products. Cold chain temperature indicator suggests that all the pharmaceuticals are needed to be kept in between 2 degree Celsius to 8 degree Celsius. This is sometime referred as 2 to 8 cold chain temperature. Pharmaceuticals getting exposed to more than 8 degree Celsius will get damaged and the user might have to end up disposing those medicines.

Breach of temperature regulations

The refrigerator carrying drugs is a very important issue as well. During the breaks, drivers turn off the refrigerator of the truck in order to save fuel. During this time the medicines remain outside the designated temperature. So, when the medicines reach customers they might not get to know that the medicines were not inside the right temperature for several hours. In order to get rid of this cold chain monitoring problem and to stop the breach of cold chain regulations, Timestrip has introduced TimestripPlus. This device can detect, for how long the medicines were out of the designated temperature. The device has temperature monitoring labels, temperature sensitive labels and temperature indicators which are maintained by the movement of a liquid.

Cold chain vaccines

Cold chain is also used to deliver vaccines. There are lots of different vaccines like MMR, Hib, influenza, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B etc. that lots of hospitals needs on a regular basis. Cold chain plays a very important role while delivering those vaccines. Cold chain vaccines are most reliable vaccines having their original quality intact.

Vaccines should be kept in their original packaging. It is important to check the fridge temperature daily. Vaccines should not be kept in room temperature under any circumstances. And any opened vaccine needs to be disposed safely.