When COVID-19 vaccines began to receive approval from worldwide regulatory agencies, the cold storage requirements were beyond what the world’s infrastructure was developed to handle. Deep frozen temperatures of -80°C would require costly infrastructure, including vast freezer farms and new forms of temperature controlled packaging. And the challenges of creating this infrastructure in remote locations posed additional challenges.
However, as new vaccines gain approvals and pharmaceutical companies with existing vaccines collaborate with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), the requirements for transportation and storage of vaccines changes. Many COVID-19 vaccines now require more manageable temperatures, including -20°C and 2°C–8°C.
Although the shipping and storage requirements of emerging temperature sensitive vaccines vary, they all need protection to mitigate potential temperature excursions during transportation. The infographic included in this post provides the most recent snapshot of approved COVID-19 vaccines--where they’re approved, type, dose and current cold storage requirements.
