Pakistan decides to buy ultra-cold refrigerators to store Pfizer vaccine
- By Jahangir Khan -
- Feb 13, 2021
ISLAMABAD: With an aim to store Pfizer vaccine, Pakistan has decided to buy 21 ultra-cold modern refrigerators, ARY News reported on Saturday, citing sources.
COVID vaccine made by Pfizer may be stored in an ultra-cold freezer between -80°C and -60°C (-112°F and -76°F).
The decision to buy modern refrigerators was taken in the wake to ensure proper storage of the Pfizer COVID vaccine, sources said. Currently Pakistan cold change system has capacity to storage COVID vaccine at -20°C.
The newly bough ultra-cold freezers would placed in the federal capital and provinces for preservation of the vaccine.
Pakistan to receive doses of Pfizer vaccines from the Covax platform. The programme ensures equitable worldwide access to Covid-19 vaccines with enough doses for countries to immunise more than three percent of their populations by mid-2021.
Read more: Pakistan to get 17.2mn doses as Covax issues distribution list for first vaccine wave
The distribution plan comes with lower-income countries falling behind in the vaccination race — a problem Covax was set up to address.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Federal Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar had said last week that Pakistan will likely get 17 million AstraZeneca doses of COVID-19 vaccination within the first half of current year.