COVID Vaccine Transport, Storage, and Distribution: Cold Chain Management to Ensure Efficacy.

The Vaccines for Children Program (VFC) is a federally funded program in the United States, providing vaccines to children who lack health insurance or who otherwise cannot afford the vaccination cost. The VFC program was created in 1993 and is required to be a new entitlement of each State's Medicaid plan. The program was officially implemented in October 1994 and served eligible children in all United States (US). Other countries, the United Nations (UN), and the World Health Organization (WHO), have similar programs. The inadequacies of the VFC program monitoring methodologies fall far short when monitoring COVID vaccines. Herein considerations for the transport, storage, and distribution of the COVID vaccine cold chain will be discussed.