Dominican Republic’s daunting challenge with Pfizer vaccine

Santo Domingo.- Recently the Dominican Government signed an agreement with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer to buy 7.9 million doses of its vaccine against COVID-19. In addition to the great challenge of acquiring the vaccine in a market dominated by the great capitals of the world and the urgency of controlling the new waves of the disease, there are also the difficulties of distribution and storage.

Pfizer’s vaccine requires temperatures as low as minus 80 degrees (F) for its conservation, which forces each acquiring State to create the necessary infrastructure for its storage and distribution.

Regarding distribution and storage, the senior director of Supply Chain for Latin America at Pfizer, Bárbara García, told Diario Libre that the key to maintaining the minimum temperature required by the vaccine during its transportation are the shipping boxes that they have designed.

Those boxes, she said, contain a combination of dry ice and panels that allows to maintain the specifications between -60 and -80 degrees (F).