Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle is among the facilities making special preparations to store the new Pfizer vaccine.
Baptist memorial hospital golden triangle is among the facilities making special preparations to store the new pfizer vaccine.
Wcbi news reporter stephen pimpo was at the hospital today for an inside look at that storage process and has the story "so this is like a central hub so we can store several hundred doses of vaccine so can distribute it to clinics and other locations where they will only be able to store it for 5 days."
Baptist memortial hospital golden triangle is ready and standing by for their shipment of pfizer's covid-19 vaccine.
The hospital is set to get 500 doses of the moderna vaccine on december 21st, but it's the pfizer vaccine that requires special preparation.
"there's a lot of training that goes on with our staff to make sure our staff are properly trained to handle something that is stored at ultra low temperatures.
It's something we really haven't done in an inpatient pharmacy setting before."
Baptist director of pharmacy eli hilton says that training includes handling dry ice, using proper personal protective equipment like gloves and goggles and transferring the vaccine into their brand new ultra- low freezer.
Su: once the vaccine is delivered...hospita l staff have about 10 minutes to move them from the shipping containers& ...and into the ultra-low freezer.
"it's critical we get this vaccine transferred into this freezer.
Messenger rna, that's the type of vaccine this is, is not very stable at room temperature."
Once the vaccine is inside...the freezer must stay closed for two hours.
"it maintains that temperature between -116 and - 76 degrees fahrenheit.
And this is so big because we eventually expect to receive many more vaccines and we're going to be able to redistribute that vaccine to other locations."
The ultra low freezer can store vaccine up to 6 months and is constantly monitoring the temperature.
"every 15 minutes a temperature is recorded.
If there's any excursion, our computers will also get an alert."
And if it stays open too long& with the vaccine in short supply but high in demand...hilton says baptist memorial hospital is making sure they are ready to keep it safe.
"we can guarantee you that if you get the vaccine from our facility, it's going to be monitored, stored appropriately, and effective."
In columbus...stephen pimpo...wcbi news... hilton says that while they do not know when that pfizer vaccine will arrive at baptist...they do know that eventually...they'l l have it in large enough quantities to share with
The vaccine storage requirements will make it easier to distribute, a microbiologist says.
With COVID-19 cases surging across the nation, anticipation for the distribution of vaccines is rising.
