To continue the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19, the Brazilian Ministry of Health received more than 16 million doses of immunizing agents from different manufacturing laboratories.
The doses have already started to be distributed to the states and the Federal District. From the 25th to the 31st of July, the paste received 1.9 million doses from AstraZeneca by the Covax Facility consortium; 4.2 million from Coronavac, produced by the Butantan Institute; 5.8 million from Pfizer and 2.2 million from AstraZeneca, produced by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). These doses have already started to be distributed to states and the Federal District. On Sunday (1st) more than 2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech arrived at Viracopos airport, in Campinas (SP), in two different batches, each with 1,053,000 doses.
The importance of conservation
The essential factor for the success of immunization is the correct storage of vaccines, which need to be kept within the temperature range recommended by the manufacturer, mostly between 2°C and 8°C. In this regard, Brazilian challenge is even greater, as not all municipalities are supplied by specific scientific refrigerators for the storage of vaccines – equipment required by the legislation itself. RDC 197/2017 prohibits the use of common refrigerators for storing vaccines.
In the scientific refrigerators for vaccines, there are resources and technologies that guarantee a temperature range between 2°C and 8°C, in addition to alerting and circumventing any complications. Another important aspect of the specific equipment for storing vaccines is the presence of the Emergency System, an energy backup that keeps the chamber cooling down in the event of a power outage in the commercial network. It is important that health professionals and the population itself are aware of this aspect, demanding that vaccines are always kept in scientific equipment that preserves the immunizing properties of the doses.