Promising Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has cold chain issues: WHO

GENEVA: Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), on Tuesday, November 10, said that a COVID-19 vaccine is likely to be available by the end of this year. He also said that Pfizer’s experimental remedy is a promising vaccine but it comes with social challenges as it needs to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature below or equivalent to an Antarctic winter.

According to Pfizer, its COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90 per cent effective as it found the first successful temporary data from a large-scale clinical trial. Nevertheless, the requirement to keep the vaccine in extremely cold storage complicates any immunisation programme, especially in warmer regions like Africa and Asia where there are vast distances between cities and appropriate infrastructure is lacking.