Health care provider Zuellig Pharma Corp. has purchased 10 ultra-low temperature freezers in anticipation of the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines that need to be stored in various temperature requirements.
Zuellig Pharma on Tuesday announced it has ordered 10 ultra-low temperature freezers to add to its capacity to store Covid-19 vaccines. Jannette Jakosalem, chief business officer at the firm, explained the procurement would allow Zuellig Pharma to handle the doses coming from different makers and with varying temperature needs.
“We have ordered 10 additional ultra-low freezers, on top of the 14 already deployed through our network in anticipation of the storage and distribution demands of the Covid-19 vaccines in the Philippines,” Jakosalem said in a statement.
Zuellig Pharma CEO and Area Director Maikel Kuijpers vowed the firm will carry out its duty of storing the vaccines to the best of its abilities. He added Zuellig Pharma has undertaken deliveries of influenza shots and flu vaccination exercises as proof of its capacity to handle and distribute the Covid-19 doses. “Over our long history of supplying health care products during crises such as world wars, economic crises or natural disasters, we have learned best practices that we believe are applicable to the current Covid-19 pandemic, which I hope we can share,” Kuijpers said.
In the Philippines, Zuellig Pharma maintains a portfolio of being involved in the supply chain management of almost every major vaccine drives. It boasts of cold rooms and walk-in freezers nationwide that it employs to store pharmaceutical products that need preservation.
Zuellig Pharma’s cold rooms that can go down to as low as 2 degrees Celsius are in Laguna, Parañaque City, Cebu and Davao, and can store up to 629 million vaccine doses.
Moreover, its walk-in freezers can sustain 52 million shots at -15 to -25 degrees Celsius. The firm is also looking to amplify its ultra-cold freezer capacity to 24 freezers that can keep more than 7 million vaccines at temperatures as deep as -80 degrees Celsius.
Zuellig Pharma also developed a Covid-19 digital care platform, called eZV ax, in partnership with Accenture and Microsoft, wherein stakeholders can coordinate for the procedures in storing and distributing the Our system features powerful data and analytics tools that allow us to drive efficiencies through the process whilst providing real-time dashboards and status reports,” Kuijpers said.
The Philippine government is planning to import 148 million shots of Covid-19 vaccines from various manufacturers with the goal of injecting at least 70 million Filipinos.
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