Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine in the Developing World – Challenges Ahead
Of the ten Covid candidate vaccines in the final phase of trials, Pfizer/BioTech has the first interim results. The BNT162b2 preparation is one of several that are being developed based on experimental matrix RNA technology.
The release of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer may well mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic. However, its delivery to different countries of the world will require huge transport and logistics resources. The reason is that the new drug must be stored at a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius, and after defrosting, its shelf life is only about five days at a temperature of 2-8 degrees. This means that many countries around the world, which do not yet have such storage requirements, would face challenges while acquiring the vaccine. The reason behind the special storage requirements is that Pfizer vaccine is based on a technology that uses synthetic mRNA to activate the immune system against the virus and no currently used vaccine has ever been made using the messenger RNA technology.
Such storage requirements significantly complicate the transportation of the medicine. Currently, so-called “cold chains” are used to transport perishable products, but they are not designed for such extreme temperatures.
Thermal Boxes
Pfizer offered its own short-term solution. They developed special thermal boxes, each the size of a small suitcase, capable of holding up to 5,000 doses of the drug. Filled with dry ice, they can keep the vaccine at the right temperature for about ten days if they are not opened.
But even in thermal boxes, the drug will only have a few days to get to its destination. After that, it must be used for five days, unless it is possible to store it at minus 70 degrees at the place of delivery. In this case, the vaccine may last up to six months.
Who can afford it?
Ultra-deep freeze technology is not often used in hospitals and is generally not used in medicine in low-income countries. But in many villages in developing countries, sometimes there is not even a regular refrigerator for storing the vaccine. Thus, it is a big challenge for almost every country to arrange the cold-chain needed to store the coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by Pfizer.
Presenting its third-quarter results, BioNTech said it was working on creating a more stable version of the drug that could last longer in a conventional refrigerator. However, even this result will not significantly reduce the logistics requirements.
Developing countries may just have to wait for the release of other vaccines that are also on the way. Many of them will not need to be stored in a deep freeze, and some will not need to be frozen at all.
