June 2, 2021
PHC Corporation of North America
Wood Dale, IL - A forthcoming CDC-sponsored NSF/ANSI standard is intended to ensure vaccine storage refrigerators and freezers certified to the standard are purpose-built to preserve vaccine efficacy.
The new standard is anticipated to be released by mid-2021 and has been in development for the last six years. Members of the standard development committee included experts from vaccine manufacturers, pediatricians, state health authorities, refrigeration manufacturers and other interested and qualified parties. These experts have worked to find solutions to several challenges that face vaccine storage.
Inappropriate storage conditions created by many refrigerators and freezers used for vaccine storage can result in temperatures that fall outside of the vaccine manufacturer's required temperature ranges. For many vaccines that must be stored between +2°C to +8°C, freezing temperatures lead to lost vaccine potency and efficacy, leaving recipients unprotected.
Cold chain storage equipment that is purpose-designed to eliminate temperature spikes caused by freezer defrost cycles and refrigerators that maintain even temperature uniformity regardless of the product load while protecting products from freezing is critical. The new standard will simplify the selection of freezers that meet temperature uniformity requirements for safe vaccine storage.
PHC Corporation of North America provides time-tested vaccine refrigerators that ensure uniform temperatures between +2°C and +8°C (+35°F and +46°F) despite high ambient temperatures or frequent door openings.
Learn more at https://www.phchd.com/us/biomedical/vaccine-storage.