Veterinary Cold Chain Manual: Ensuring Effective Vaccines
While the human health community pays considerable attention to cold chain issues, to our knowledge there are no animal health cold chain manuals available anywhere in the world. With this in mind, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) provided funding through the project ‘Strengthening food and nutrition security through family poultry and crop integration in Eastern and Southern Africa’ for the development of a Cold Chain manual for veterinary vaccines. KYEEMA, in collaboration with the University of Sydney, developed the manual and now ACIAR has funded the printing of English and French versions of the manual.
Vaccines are a key component of animal disease prevention and control worldwide. They have a major role in protecting animal and public health, reducing animal suffering, enabling efficient production of food animals, and greatly reducing the need for antibiotics to treat food and companion animals.
However, these important activities can be seriously compromised by poor vaccine storage and handling.
This manual covers aspects of storage and transport of veterinary vaccines: the equipment used, monitoring the cold chain, how to recognise and deal with breaches of the cold chain, and packing vaccines. It will support the effective distribution of the I-2 Newcastle disease (ND) vaccine and will enhance local capacity to store and handle vaccines effectively, leading to better nutritional, livelihood and environmental outcomes for those living in poverty.
All countries interested in improving the storage and transport of animal vaccines, including those currently producing or wishing to produce I-2 vaccine for the control of ND in village chicken populations, will benefit from the use of this manual.
The final printed version is now available here.
