The transportation and rollout of vaccines to fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is an element of the supply chain currently garnering significant attention. Right now, many companies work together to innovate new technologies to ensure the rollout is optimized and effective to end the pandemic as soon as possible, and hopefully save lives. Each year, almost half of vaccines must be disposed of due to failures in temperature control and other handling issues, according to the World Health Organization. Vaccine Pods, Stirling Ultracold and HCI Energy partner for ultra-low temperature cold chain storage with an internal power source to ensure uninterrupted cold transportation.
Per Yahoo!Finance:
- Developed in partnership with HCI Energy, Vaccine Pods created a power solution that leverages sustainable energy to minimize reliance on the electrical grid or fossil fuels. As a result, this power solution enables uninterrupted cold chain management and delivery of vaccines and future biologics anywhere in the world. This technology has been designed for use with Stirling Ultracold’s SU780XLE vaccine freezers.
- Vaccine Pods’ power solution provides comprehensive visibility of storage freezers across the supply chain. These real-time insights including temperatures of freezers located anywhere in the world, 24-hour monitoring of location(s), security and remote access permissions, solar array and deployment status with real-time weather tracking to deploy or retract the solar panels in the case of inclement weather, power system performance and status and fuel levels
"The industry is facing an unprecedented situation. COVID vaccines must be kept at extremely low temperatures, whether they’re in transit or being stored in a local healthcare facility. Supply chains face major operational hurdles to support the proper distribution of these vaccines at such massive scale," says Dusty Tenney, CEO, Stirling Ultracold. "Vaccine Pods’ charging station technology is a gamechanger. It allows companies like Stirling Ultracold to ramp up capacity and accommodate growing energy requirements of our ULT freezers, guaranteeing that we can maintain vaccines at constant ultra-low temperatures until point of use. This is a major step forward that will help supply chains meet the urgent need for COVID vaccines."
