New refrigerators for the vaccination campaign in Senegal
Audio 02:25
Arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccines from the global Covax initiative, March 3, 2021, in Dakar, Senegal.
AFP - JOHN WESSELS
By: Théa Ollivier
6 mins
The first part of the AstraZeneca vaccines from the global Covax initiative - 324,000 doses - arrived in Senegal on Tuesday March 2.
The country had already received two weeks earlier 200,000 doses of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, purchased in a national parallel strategy.
The vaccination campaign has started but then the question arises of the conservation of vaccines and respect for the cold chain.
This is an anticipated issue in Senegal.
The country has invested in 1,117 new refrigerators approved for the coronavirus vaccination campaign.
Publicity
From a small blue cooler, nurse Khady Sarr takes out the doses of Sinopharm vaccines one by one to inject them into the arms of her patients.
“
We store in the coolers to be able to use the vaccines and not to open the refrigerator too much,
” she tells us.
They are stored at the same temperature between + 2 ° C and + 8 ° C.
Like all the other vaccines that are here in the room.
"
Provided by the Gaspard Kamara health center, teams visited private clinics and medical offices in the district to distribute the 4,900 Chinese vaccines intended for health personnel.
Pape Ndiaye, responsible for the depot, must ensure that the cold chain is respected while the storage refrigerators are equipped with a continuous monitoring system.
“
For supplies, you have to have a cooler and accumulators for each cooler,”
explains Gaspard Kamara.
My mother is 79 years old, if the vaccines are not stored well, she will not be able to benefit from them.
We do everything we can to ensure that the vaccines are well preserved and that the population benefits from them.
"
Inside large cold rooms, Sinopharm vaccine stocks are managed by the National Supply Pharmacy.
It is she who distributes them in the regions aboard refrigerated trucks explains Dr Sokhna Gaye, responsible for inventory management.
“
In all the localities where there is no electricity, they have solar refrigerators that can be used to operate them to avoid temperature variations during storage.
But if there are power cuts, here at the central purchasing office, there is an emergency generator
, ”adds Dr Sokhna Gaye.
At Fann Hospital, cold rooms that have just been installed, among other things, to store AstraZeneca vaccines kept between + 2 ° C and + 8 ° C.
There are also freezers which can drop to freezing temperatures.
“
We can go down to -20 ° C.
It is just Pfizer that is the problem, it would be necessary to have equipment that goes down to -80 ° C for Pfizer,
assures Ousseynou Badiane, coordinator of the vaccination program in the country.
If it is stored incorrectly, the vial should be discarded after six hours.
The only danger would be to have a dose that is not effective.
"
As part of the global Covax initiative, Senegal is due to receive nearly a million additional vaccines in the coming months.
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Senegal
Coronavirus
Health and medicine
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