The transportation of vaccines is not as easy as sticking something in a refrigerator and delivering it to its desired destination. There are a lot of factors that need to be considered in order to transport a vaccine without deteriorating its effectiveness. That’s why Toyota’s announcement that its special Land Cruiser 78 has obtained the World Health Organisation’s performance, quality and safety prequalification for refrigerated vaccine transportation and contributing toward improving the rate of vaccine use in developing countries is a bit of a relief.
So what did Toyota have to do to its Land Cruiser 78 in order to prep it for this important job? For starters, it had to be fitted with a specific B Medical System CF850 vaccine refrigerator which has a storage capacity of 396 litres. This translates to 400 vaccine packages. To ensure the safety of these vaccines, the refrigerator also needed an independent battery which can operate for 16 hours without a power supply. This allows for the refrigerator to be charged by the car while driving and source external power from the battery when parked.
General mandatory vaccines for infants usually require storage at 2 to 8°C and cannot be used if not stored under proper temperature management. Developing countries receive assistance from international agencies such as GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance and UNICEF for the supply of vaccines.
Approximately 20 per cent of the volumes supplied are disposed annually because they become unusable due to temperature changes during transportation when distributing to hospitals and clinics within the respective countries, as the road infrastructures are inadequate and there is no proper means for refrigerated transportation. Each year, the lives of 1,5 million children are lost to vaccine preventable diseases with insufficient effective utilization of vaccines being one of the reasons.
