[ad_1]
Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines against covid-19 that will arrive in the UK from next week, and likely the first to arrive in Portugal as a result of this collaboration, are expected to be frozen at 70 degrees Celsius, from the Puurs factory in Belgium. , a small city with several pharmaceutical industries and famous for its high alcohol content (Duvel), about 25 kilometers from both Brussels and Antwerp. But you have to remain very sober to win the challenge of maintaining the cold chain of the first immunization against the new coronavirus.
During the transport of the vaccine developed by the German biotechnology company BioNtech, it must be kept at a temperature that can vary up to ten degrees: between 60 and 80 degrees Celsius minus, the ideal value is minus 70 degrees. To keep them that way, the vials with the vaccine doses – each vial contains five doses, which must be diluted when they reach the vaccination center – are housed inside with dry ice inside boxes designed to withstand extreme environments and temperatures. , from the South Pole to the hottest deserts on Earth.
The boxes developed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer for the transport of vaccines in extreme cold conditions can carry 1,000 or 500 doses of vaccines. They are filled with dry ice and then shipped from the factory to the world, for customers who have already purchased 570 million doses. The first 50 million doses are ready for the first customers, said Sean Marett, commercial director of German biotech company BioNtech, which developed the vaccine that Pfizer will put on the market.
The Portuguese company APP Thermal, from Maia, also produces similar boxes and has experience working with Pfizer and transporting vaccines. With its Argentine partner and Pfizer in that South American country, the Portuguese company has developed boxes that will be used to transport BioNtech-Pfizer’s demanding covid-19 vaccine to vaccination centers in Argentina – and hopes they will be approved for the same purpose. in Portugal.
There are boxes of various sizes, for example XL (1560 ampoules), in which doses of vaccines can be held for 72 hours or more. This if the ongoing tests confirm it, explains Linda Santos, APP Thermal project manager.
“The boxes have an aluminum compound, which does not allow reflections, either from light or from heat,” explains Linda Santos. It is this material that allows for thermal insulation. The vaccine box enters directly into the heart of the container, which is filled with dry ice, and along with this order is a device, with sensors, that monitors the temperature and condition of the box – and transmits the information in real time. via GPS, to a control center.
The BioNtech-Pfizer vaccine, the first based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, uses no part of the novel coronavirus. What you use is a molecule that contains the instructions for our cells to make the protein found on the surface of the virus, the spike, which gives it its distinctive spine-like appearance. But the spike is not contagious. The purpose is precisely to use that molecule (mRNA) to train our immune system to recognize an enemy, as if it were distributing robotic portraits of it.
These vaccines are faster to produce than flu vaccines because they are not grown on eggs. It is our cells that use the mRNA instructions to make the spike protein, which trains our immune system against the virus. The problem is that mRNA is an unstable molecule that breaks down into smaller components. Keeping it at ultra-cool temperatures allows it to stabilize.
That’s why all the care put into the transport and long-term storage of vaccines by BioNtech-Pfizer and, by the way, also by Moderna, which is based on the same technology but claims to be able to stabilize the vaccine at minus 20 degrees Celsius.
However, at a press conference on Wednesday, BioNtech explained that its vaccine could be stored in vaccination centers in these special boxes for 20 days. If you need to open them to replace the ice, they can only last 15 days. In a normal refrigerator, however, with temperatures between two and eight degrees Celsius, they will last no more than five days.
“If the 70 degree negative vaccine box is delivered to a health center, you can win days later: Pfizer says it can stay another five days in temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees,” exemplifies Manuel Pizarro, administrator at APP Thermal.
The Portuguese company that hopes to sell its boxes to Pfizer is now testing its products in a chamber where it can simulate various environmental conditions and temperatures, with the Smartcae artificial intelligence program. “If something falls outside the temperature range, logistics entities can take corrective action, avoid waste and control vaccine delivery,” adds Pizarro.
These experiments allow us to predict that, under certain environmental conditions, and for transports of a certain duration (and for orders of a certain volume), it may be necessary to reinforce the dry ice at a certain height. For example, at the 23rd hour, during a 24-hour trip to the vaccination center, to ensure the integrity of the vaccines.
.
[ad_2]
Source link
