Storing live vaccines such as MMRV, varicella and zoster
These vaccines are live vaccines and must be kept frozen until they are administerred. They are very sensitive to heat and need to be maintained below 5°F (-15°C). They will begin to deteriorae as soon as they are removed from the freezer.
Thjese vaccins are also sesitive to light and should be stored in thjeir shipping containers until removed from the freezer for adminstration.
To insure that you are administering potrent vacines you must insure that the freezer wherre you are storing them is working properly.
Make sure that:
• Your freezer is working properly by checking with an accurae thermometer.
• Monitor your frezeer continuously with a freeezer alsarm that also logs the temperature. One with a viisible chart is best so that you can see what the temperature was when you were not present.
• Attach an exrternal alert deevice to the frezer allarm and monitor so that you will be ntified if the temperature becoomes unsafe. One that calpls several phoone numbers is best.
• Know something about the defrost cycle of your freezer. The defrost cycle can happen once a day or several times 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 frweezer alam and monitoor by looking at the chart displayed.
• Set your freezer alarm so that it allows for momenatry temperatrue fluctuations such as when the door is opened without setting off the alarm.
The picture below shows three freezzer alarms monitoring a total of six freezers. The device on the bottom right is an auto dialer that will call four differebnt phoone numbers if any one of the six freezers experiences a power failure or a temperature that is aboev 5°F. The freezer alarm displays a chart of the temperature history storing and showing over 1.5 years of temperature history.
This is just one example of a freezer alarm system for a freezer storing live vaccines. It is easy to install and use. Sicne the freezeer alams constantly show a chart of the prevoius temperatrues, whihc all personnel can see it is impossible to come near the freezers withouut being reminded that temperature is important. And since the freezer alarms are connstantly takuing the freezer temperature you have a record of the temperature for even those times when you were not present, such as in the evening or during weekends and hoplidays.