Apart from the researchers who invent the remedies, the caregivers who then inject the doses, the anti-Covid vaccination also shines the spotlight on a lesser-known link in the chain: logistics, which is particularly complex in the case of new serums.
Pfizer vaccines, the first on the market, must in fact be delivered at minus 70 ° C in containers filled with carbon dioxide, a real technical challenge.
However, the refrigerated packaging of the French SME Sofrigam has only just been qualified this Monday morning.
It was about time, will argue the most impatient who are worried about seeing the vaccination skate in France.
For the pros, on the contrary, the procedure was particularly fast and efficient.
It is not state control that allows these packaging to be approved, but the company carries out its own tests with precise specifications.
The deadline is not linked to the French administration but to a requirement in terms of standards.
Sofrigam, a company specializing in the cold chain which works for large pharmaceutical laboratories or transporters has in fact just had two types of “mobile refrigerators” validated, in the words of Gilles Labranque: first, large blue boxes capable of transporting a hundred vaccines at -70 ° C and keep the precious vials in this extreme cold for 48 hours.
The other container must allow the vaccines to be kept at 5 ° C for five days in nursing homes or hospitals where they are injected, because once "thawed", the serum can, without losing its effectiveness, be stored at this temperature a few days.
"The process has been accelerated"
“We work in a very specific sector.
It's not like food, all the stages must be qualified and validated, ”emphasizes Gilles Labranque, the CEO of this group.
Normally, the testing phases can last between three and six months.
For this serum, the group made "tailor-made".
“It's kind of our job,” says Gilles Labranque.
Sofrigam is able to produce its boxes in its factory in Monchy-le-Preux (Pas de Calais) near Arras.
The group also has a metrology laboratory, capable of qualifying - that is to say checking according to official Afnor standards - the proper functioning of these extreme isothermal boxes.
Faced with the race against time of the Covid, "the process has been accelerated", insists the CEO, before adding: "The qualification occurred during the slack period at the end of the year.
»A first batch of 10,000 pieces has already been ordered.
Pfizer plans to deliver 1 billion doses, Moderna at least 500 million.
The vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are among the first vaccines on the market, but they will be far from the last.
There are about 30 vaccine candidates.
In the long term, the logistics of delivering products to the population, while respecting the cold chain of health products, will be "a global challenge", assures Gilles Labranque.
The French SME is now ready.