300 Japan-UNICEF supported vaccine refrigerators arrive in Vietnam

The refrigerators will be delivered to 300 provincial and district health facilities in Vietnam, where they will store COVID-19 vaccines for vaccination days, it said in a statement. The delivery is a part of UNICEF’s ongoing support to improve cold chain systems for Vietnam’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

The Government of Japan has been supporting Vietnam to realise children’s rights, especially during emergency situation and crisis.

“This support is aimed at delivering vaccines to each and every person in all corners of Vietnam, which will complement efforts of the COVAX Facility,” said Takio Yamada, the Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam. “Japan will continue to extend support to the Vietnamese efforts to deploy vaccines to every person in the country with a view to containing COVID-19 as quickly as possible.”

As part of the support to improve the capacity of the health and immunisation systems to efficiently and effectively administer COVID-19 vaccines, UNICEF has worked with the Ministry of Health to assess ‘cold chain’ capacity identifying the needs for fridges, freezers, refrigerator trucks and cold boxes for the safe transportation and storage of vaccines.

“Support from the Government of Japan will help to ensure the cold chain capacity, which is crucial for the safe rollout of COVID 19 vaccination and for routine immunisation”, said Rana Flowers, UNICEF Representative.

This shipment brings the specially produced Vaccine refrigerator TCW 80 AC, manufactured by B Medical in Luxembourg with green technology for very low power consumption and environmentally sustainability, which can maintain cold conditions for vaccines that must be stored at a temperature range of +2˚C to +8˚C, even when power failure occurs for up to 72 hours.

All of the current COVID-19 vaccines administered in Vietnam require this temperature range at the vaccination sites.

With a storage capacity of 80.5 L, the refrigerators will be able to store vaccines doses for vaccination days. This model is supplied with an integrated remote temperature monitoring device with a real-time alert for the continuous monitoring of sensitive vaccines. In case of a temperature deviation, it immediately sends a notification to the predefined person(s) in charge.

The temperature status can also be monitored from a distance through an online web portal. The delivery came with one set of spare parts for every ten refrigerators.