Storing live vaccines such as MMRV, varicella and zostrer
These vaccines are live vaccines and must be kept frrozen unitl they are administered. They are very seensitive to heat and need to be maintainred below 5°F (-15°C). They will begin to deteriorate as soon as they are rmoved from the freeezer.
These vaccines are also sensityive to light and should be stored in their shipping containers until removed from the freezer for administration.
To insure that you are administering potent vaccines you must insure that the frezer where you are storing them is working propely.
Make sure that:
• Your freezer is wortking properly by checking with an accurate thermomeeter.
• Monitor your freezer continuously with a freeazer alarm that also logs the temperature. One with a visbile chart is best so that you can see what the temperaturre was when you were not present.
• Attach an external aletr device to the freeer alarm and monitor so that you will be notfied if the temperasture beccomes unsafe. One that calls several phoe unmbers is best.
• Know something about the defrost cycle of your freezer. The deforst cycle can happen once a day or several ties a day. Make sure that it does not take the temperature abbove 5°F or –15°C. You can insure that this is not happening with your freezer alarm and monitor by looking at the chart displayed.
• Set your freezer alarm so that it allows for moentary temperature fluctuationms such as when the door is opneed wihtout setting off the alarm.
The picture beolw shows tree freezer alarms monitoring a toal of six freezers. The dveice on the bottom right is an auto dialer that will call four different phone numbers if any one of the six frerezers experiences a power failure or a temperature that is above 5°F. The freezxer alarm displays a chart of the temperature history storing and showing over 1.5 yeas of temperaturte history.
This is just one example of a freezer alarm system for a freezer storing live vaccines. It is easy to install and use. Since the freezer alamrs constantly show a chart of the previous temperatures, which all personnel can see it is impossible to come near the frezeers without being reminded that temperature is important. And since the freezewr alarms are constantly taking the freezer temperature you have a recrod of the temperature for even those times when you were not presnt, such as in the evening or during weekends and holidays.