Among other medical innovations and inventions, vaccines have long since proven effective at preventing infectious diseases and virus-related fatalities around the world. For over 200 years, vaccines have bolstered every patient’s immune system from these dangerous diseases and kept them safe, and today, children, adults, and the elderly alike receive them. Children’s immune systems are still developing, and they may need a boost to be safer against infectious disease of all kinds. Meanwhile, adults may get vaccines to keep their own immune systems updated, and the elderly may need vaccines because their age-worn immune systems may not fight infections very well on their own. Americans young and old regularly get vaccines to keep them safe, and medical staff at a hospital, pharmacy, or a hospital should have the right storage solutions for vaccines. These items are temperature-sensitive, so a pharmacy grade refrigerator may be a fine way to store them. Other vaccines must be frozen, so a lab freezer or laboratory freezer will do the job just fine. Whether a vaccine freezer or a pharmacy grade refrigerator, medical staff can look online to find local medical supply wholesalers who can provide these units.
Vaccines Then and Now
Vaccines as we know them can be traced back to 1796, when a man named Edward Jenner developed what he called the “arm to arm” inoculation to protect patients from smallpox. He did this when he extracted a skin blister sample from a cowpox patient and transferred this sample to the arm of a patient. This would “train” the patient’s immune system to recognize and fight off viruses related to smallpox and cowpox without the danger of a full-scale infection, and this proved successful. Vaccines continued to be refined and updated over time, and by the 1940s, large scale production of vaccines began in earnest. These vaccines were designed to fight off common illnesses at the time such as smallpox, whooping cough, tetanus, and Diphtheria. Today, in the early 21st century, an even broader swath of diseases are covered, and this includes measles and Polio. Once-common diseases have now been made relatively rare and easy to prevent.
Plenty of statistics and trends have shown how effective these vaccines are at preventing virus-related deaths, and the measles virus may be a fine example of this. The World Health Organizations, as well as the Measles and Rubella Initiative, have shown that ever since the year 2000, some 171. million lives have been saved due to the measles vaccine around the world. In particular, back in the year 2000, a total of 546,800 measles-related deaths took place, but by the year 2014, this figure had dropped to merely 114,900 or so. This represents a 79% decrease in measles-related deaths, a significant decrease overall. Around the world, it is estimated that as many as 2.5 million unnecessary (as in preventable) deaths are prevented every year. Young children may get many vaccines to reinforce their developing immune systems from common viruses, and the elderly may get their vaccines updated, too. Many elderly Americans live in crowded retirement or nursing homes, where disease might spread quickly among seniors who have time-worn immune systems. Vaccines help prevent this and keeps the residents healthier.
Proper Vaccine Storage
Vaccines are highly effective at preventing disease, clearly, but these injections are temperature-sensitive and must be stored correctly or they may be ruined. These vaccines are temperature sensitive, and a vaccine refrigerator such as a pharmacy grade refrigerator will be needed to store them. In some cases, a freezer will be needed for other vaccine models. Why a pharmacy grade refrigerator? Ordinary, commercial freezers are no good for this, since they are meant to store good and have dangerously wide temperature variance as they are opened and closed. The same is true for fridge units; only a medical grade fridge unit can keep vaccines inside safe. A pharmacy grade refrigerator may keep vaccines at a safe temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and a freezer will have a temperature ranging from -58 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Lab staff may use the number of vaccines they have on site, and available space and square footage, as a reference for buying these coolers. Some are large, and others are small and light enough for store on a shelf.
