Transporte de vacunas COVID-19 para operaciones multinacionales.
Teniente coronel Far. Luc Van Parys. Bélgica
COVID-19 vaccines transport for multinational operations
Pauwels G., Deputy Responsible Person, Pharmacist Captain (OF-2), Belgian Defence; Van Parys L1.,
Responsible Person, Pharmacist Lieutenant colonel (OF-4), Belgian Defence
The European Union (EU) has authorised four COVID-19 vac-cines,
and their acquisition was coordinated at EU-level. Each indi-vidual
nation decides on its own vaccination strategy, meaning also
that vaccination of troops deployed in a multinational operation is
according to the respective national strategy. Belgium started vacci-nating
its deployed troops in theatre from March 2021.
For vaccination in theatre, the vaccine, the vaccinator and the
target population need to be present at the same time and place, thus
close planning of each national Medical Operational Command
is
required. Each vaccination campaign needs a preliminary assess-ment
that takes into account the characteristics of the vaccine
(multi-dose, temperature conditions and scheme), the number of
persons to be vaccinated and the availability of a facility with med-ical
supervision (cfr. pre-vaccination checklist, anaphylaxis). Any
spillage of scarce (national) vaccines and secondary transports in
theatre must be avoided.
For each campaign, a risk assessment of the transport lane
is performed by comparison of the estimated total transport time
versus the guaranteed storage conditions in the transport box. Dif-
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44 Sanid. mil. 2022; 79 (Extraordinario)
ferent (active and passive cooling) transport boxes were available,
each evaluated by the vendor (ISTA Standard) and qualified by the
own Quality Department. Secondly, the chain of custody is assured
by recording each transaction (handover) during transport. An
accompanying person keeps «two eyes on the box» and intervenes
in case of unexpected events, e.g., flight delay. Thirdly, the transport
is temperature monitored from «fridge to fridge». On destination,
the data are sent for immediate analysis by the Responsible Person
to confirm that the quality of the vaccines was guaranteed during
transport (cfr. Good Distribution Practices GDP).
Transports for all campaigns were successfully completed from
Belgium (Military Hospital, primary storage site of the vaccines) to
the different theatres (Africa, Middle East and Europe). All trans-ports
started by configuring the appropriate transport box for road
transport to the airport or harbour. The transport boxes used were
«Peli BioThermal Golden Hour Mobile Series 4 - 2 L» (passive,
2-8 °C), «Electrolux RCB 25E» (passive, 2-8 °C), «va-Q-tec va-Q-proof
11 Standard» (passive, -20 °C) and «Fiocchetti Portable
Refrigerator C65» (active, 2-8 °C and -20 °C).
1 luc.vanparys@mil.be