UN body to assess vaccine management practices in Nepal

Nepalese health authorities intend to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the vaccine supply chain using the World Health Organization’s tools to assess effective vaccine management.

Officials said the UN Children’s Fund will conduct an assessment at all levels during the current fiscal year.

“We are committed to providing safe and effective vaccines to our population and have made various improvements,” said Dr. Abhiyan Gautam, Chief, Immunization Division, Family Welfare Division, Department of Health. “The upcoming assessment will reveal the actual strengths and weaknesses of our existing supply chain. We will make improvements based on the report.”

Effective vaccine management practices are initiatives that monitor and evaluate the vaccine supply chain system to identify its strengths and weaknesses at all levels. Health officials say WHO assessment tools and procedures will be used to assess supply chain functions at all four levels — the central store, the provincial store, and district and local unit stores.

Cold chain managers will conduct an interview to learn about existing facility practices, facility management, and immunization programs.

“Effective evaluation of vaccine management is critical to improving and strengthening our immunization supply chain,” Gautam said. “Our vaccine storage capacity has also increased compared to the past. “This research will help us fix loopholes in the vaccine supply chain and storage practices, if any.”

Officials say the assessment will examine practices such as temperature management, storage and transportation capacity, facility infrastructure, equipment, maintenance and repair, inventory management and waste management.

Nepal has significantly strengthened the vaccine cold chain after the Covid outbreak. The government has sought assistance from various relief agencies to improve vaccine cold chain systems, including proper storage facilities such as cold rooms, refrigerators, freezers in vaccine storage facilities, refrigerated transport containers and cold boxes, among other supporting equipment.

Officials said that before Covid, the country had only 122,110 liters of vaccine storage at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius and 7,692 liters at minus 15 to 25 degrees Celsius. Currently, the country can store 336,838 liters of vaccine at a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius and 20,564 liters at a temperature of minus 15 to minus 25 degrees Celsius, which means that the vaccine storage capacity has almost tripled.

For effective vaccine management, several cold rooms, refrigerated trucks, solar-powered vaccine refrigerators, thousands of long-range vaccine carriers and refrigerated boxes have also been brought in to ensure proper storage, management and transportation, officials said.

Vaccine cold chain systems include proper storage facilities such as cold rooms, refrigerators, freezers in vaccine storage facilities, refrigerated shipping containers and cold boxes, among other ancillary equipment.