Covid Vaccine: Not A Silver Bullet

Miracle Drug? The Pfizer and BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine could usher in an exciting era in vaccine technology

- Sonali Acharjee

On November 10, even as the world enthused over the possible introduction of a Covid vaccine courtesy US drug major Pfizer and BioNTech, whose mRNA-based vaccine had logged 90 per cent efficacy in Phase 3 trials, many smaller players in India’s challenged health ecosystem wondered if they could ever be a part of the rollout of this vaccine in India. Why? Because most small hospitals—and some larger public hospitals too—usually have cold chain facilities for vaccine storage capable of maintaining temperatures of 2-8 degrees Celsius. The Pfizer vaccine BNT162, however, needs to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius or below to last up to six months. In standard fridges, it has a lifespan of five days.

For developing nations, setting up infrastructure for extreme cold chain storage will be a major challenge. Facilities without appropriate freezers will have two options: i) store them in regular fridges and use all 975 doses in each container in less than five days; ii) restock them with ice and open them less frequently to increase the effective lifespan of the vaccines. The vaccine being developed by Moderna, which is based on similar technology, does not need to be stored at such low temperatures. Interestingly, the government’s current blueprint for vaccine distribution involves schools and anganwadi centres as vaccination points, neither of which will have anything beyond everyday refrigerators.