Japan - UNICEF supported vaccine refrigerators arrive to Viet Nam

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

The Government of Japan, a longtime partner to UNICEF Viet Nam, has been supporting Viet Nam to realize 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 Viet Nam, which will complement efforts of the COVAX Facility. 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”, said Takio Yamada, the Japanese Ambassador to Viet Nam.

As part of the support to improve capacity of the health and immunization 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 immunization”, said Rana Flowers, UNICEF Representative. “We are delighted to work with the Government of Japan in this important activity”

This shipments bring 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 Viet Nam 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 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./.