Cold chain is a system of transporting and storing vaccines within the safe temperature range of +2C to +8C.
Vaccines are sensitive medicines that must be protected from light and temperature fluctuations outside of 2°C to 8°C.
All immunisation providers responsible for ordering, storing, receiving and administering vaccines must understand the principles of vaccine storage and cold chain management.
The National Vaccine Storage Guidelines: Strive for 5 provide best practice guidelines for storing vaccines and managing the cold chain. Resources are available from the National Vaccine Storage resource collection.
The NSW Health Vaccine Storage and Cold Chain Management Policy provides mandatory requirements for the storage and management of vaccines in NSW public facilities. The policy directive includes a Vaccine Refrigerator Protocol for public facilities.
The Cold Chain Toolkit and Safe Vaccine Storage Checklist are available to support all immunisation providers.
Vaccines may lose potency if exposed to direct sunlight or ultraviolet (UV) light, including fluorescent light. If a vaccine loses potency it may become less effective in providing protection against vaccine preventable diseases.
To protect vaccines from light exposure they must be stored in the purpose-built vaccine refrigerator inside their original cardboard packaging. Vaccines must not be removed from the original cardboard packaging to increase refrigerator capacity.
The original cardboard packaging ensures vaccines are protected against:
Purpose built vaccine refrigerators must have capacity to store 1 months’ supply of government funded and private vaccine stock (if required).
Consider the volume of vaccines you store during peak times. You may require additional vaccine storage capacity to meet demand during the influenza season, consider hiring or purchasing additional purpose-built refrigerator.
If you become aware of vaccines which have been exposed to light:
All vaccines must be stored within the recommended temperature range of +2°C to +8°C at all times. Maintaining the cold chain is important to ensure that effective and potent vaccines are administered to patients.
Immunisation providers are responsible for ensuring all staff are trained in vaccine storage and cold chain management. The NSW Health Vaccine Storage and Cold Chain Management online training module should be used to facilitate staff education to equip staff to effectively manage the cold chain.
A vaccine storage self-audit must be completed every 12 months and more frequently where there have been problems with:
The following tools are available to complete the audit:
Please contact your local public health unit on 1300 066 055 to discuss any concerns following the audit.
Local public health units may carry out vaccine storage and cold chain audits on immunisation providers to ensure compliance with the National Vaccine Storage Guidelines: Strive for 5 and the NSW Health cold chain mandatory requirements.
A cold chain breach occurs when vaccine storage temperatures:
Immunisation providers must report all cold chain breaches to their local public health unit.
Immunisation providers are responsible for:
When receiving a vaccine delivery it is important to confirm that the cold chain has been maintained during transport and the integrity of the vaccines has not been compromised.
Before accepting the delivery and transferring the vaccines to a dedicated vaccine refrigerator, check the cold chain monitors and record the check on the vaccine minimum/maximum temperature chart.
If the cold chain monitor(s) has activated contact the NSW Vaccine Centre immediately on 1300 656 132.
While awaiting advice, the vaccines must be:
The mandatory requirements outlined in The National Vaccine Storage Guidelines 'Strive for 5' (3rd edition) 2019 apply to ALL immunisation providers in NSW who access government funded vaccines. This includes, general practitioners, pharmacies, residential aged care facilities, Aboriginal Medical Services and all NSW Health facilities, including child and family health and community centres.
Yes, all immunisation providers accessing government funded vaccines must be storing vaccines in a purpose-built vaccine refrigerator.
No, there is no government funding scheme for purpose-built vaccine refrigerators.
No, please refer Section 4 Vaccine temperature monitoring devices of The National Vaccine Storage Guidelines 'Strive for 5' (3rd edition) 2019.
Please refer Section 4 Vaccine temperature monitoring devices of The National Vaccine Storage Guidelines 'Strive for 5' (3rd edition) 2019. Data loggers provide 24/7 monitoring of your fridge. They are extremely useful to determine the duration of exposure of vaccines to out of range temperatures.
Yes, local public health units may carry out vaccine storage and cold chain audits on immunisation providers to ensure they are compliant.
Contact your local public health unit on 1300 066 055 for further information and advice.
At least two staff members must successfully complete the NSW Health Vaccine Storage and Cold Chain Management on-line learning module to continue to receive government-funded vaccines. However, it is strongly recommended that all persons responsible for ordering, storing, receiving and administering vaccines complete the on-line training module to ensure they understand the principles of vaccine storage. All staff should be competent in vaccine management in the event the person responsible for vaccine storage and the back-up person are away or in the event of an emergency or power failure.
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A vaccine fridge temperature monitoring chart is available from the National Vaccine Storage resource collection.
