Norman Bryan A, Rajgopal Jayant, Lim Jung, Gorham Katrin, Haidari Leila, Brown Shawn T, Lee Bruce Y
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
Public Health Computational and Operations Research (PHICOR), Pittsburgh, PA (formerly) and Baltimore, MD (currently), United States; International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Vaccine. 2015 Jun 17;33(27):3135-41. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.04.091. Epub 2015 May 6.
Within a typical vaccine supply chain, vaccines are packaged into individual cylindrical vials (each containing one or more doses) that are bundled together in rectangular "inner packs" for transport via even larger groupings such as cold boxes and vaccine carriers. The variability of vaccine inner pack and vial size may hinder efficient vaccine distribution because it constrains packing of cold boxes and vaccine carriers to quantities that are often inappropriate or suboptimal in the context of country-specific vaccination guidelines.
We developed in Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA) a spreadsheet model that evaluated the impact of different packing schemes for the Benin routine regimen plus the introduction of the Rotarix vaccine. Specifically, we used the model to compare the current packing scheme to that of a proposed modular packing scheme.
Conventional packing of a Dometic RCW25 that aims to maximize fully-immunized children (FICs) results in 123 FICs and a packing efficiency of 81.93% compared to a maximum of 155 FICs and 94.1% efficiency for an alternative modular packaging system.
Our analysis suggests that modular packaging systems could offer significant advantages over conventional vaccine packaging systems with respect to space efficiency and potential FICs, when they are stored in standard vaccine carrying devices. This allows for more vaccines to be stored within the same volume while also simplifying the procedures used by field workers to pack storage devices. Ultimately, modular packaging systems could be a simple way to help increase vaccine coverage worldwide.
在典型的疫苗供应链中，疫苗被包装成单个圆柱形小瓶（每个小瓶含有一剂或多剂），这些小瓶被捆绑在矩形“内包装”中，以便通过更大的组合（如冷藏箱和疫苗运输箱）进行运输。疫苗内包装和小瓶尺寸的变异性可能会阻碍疫苗的有效分发，因为它限制了冷藏箱和疫苗运输箱的包装数量，而这些数量在特定国家的疫苗接种指南中往往不合适或不理想。
我们在Microsoft Excel（微软公司，华盛顿州雷德蒙德）中开发了一个电子表格模型，评估了贝宁常规免疫程序不同包装方案以及引入罗特威疫苗的影响。具体而言，我们使用该模型将当前包装方案与提议的模块化包装方案进行比较。
旨在使完全免疫儿童（FIC）数量最大化的多美达RCW25传统包装方式可实现123名FIC，包装效率为81.93%，而另一种模块化包装系统最多可实现155名FIC，效率为94.1%。
我们的分析表明，当模块化包装系统存储在标准疫苗运输设备中时，在空间效率和潜在的FIC方面，相较于传统疫苗包装系统可能具有显著优势。这使得在相同体积内可以存储更多疫苗，同时也简化了现场工作人员包装存储设备所使用的程序。最终，模块化包装系统可能是一种有助于提高全球疫苗接种覆盖率的简单方法。
