Beyond attacks on health facilities and constant security risks for health workers and patients, the war in Ukraine has also disrupted many critical functions that are less visible but equally essential to maintaining health-care services.
One of these is the vaccine cold chain; a system that ensures vaccines are stored and transported within a required temperature range.
As transport routes have become longer and electricity outages and attacks on energy infrastructure continue, maintaining stable storage conditions is increasingly difficult. Even a single break in the cold chain can compromise vaccine effectiveness or render them unusable.
That is why WHO, together with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and other partners, are supporting Ukraine in ensuring adequate vaccine storage conditions.
“Through sustained collaboration and partnership, as requested by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, WHO continues to support critical health services whose delivery has been significantly disrupted by the war. We provide technical assistance, help coordinate partners’ efforts and support the institutional changes needed to strengthen the health system. We are grateful to Sweden for its continued support. Through this partnership, we are helping Ukraine build a more resilient, accessible and people-centred health system,” said Jarno Habicht, WHO’s Representative in Ukraine.
To support that initiative, WHO is currently delivering a total of 5000 pre-qualified electronic temperature monitoring devices and data loggers for district-level health facilities, as well as 129 WHO-pre-qualified cold boxes and vaccine carriers to strengthen regional vaccine distribution capacities. Procurement is also underway for 29 remote temperature monitoring devices for refrigerated vehicles operating at the regional level.
These interventions will support improved temperature monitoring at different levels of the national cold chain system and service delivery points.
The equipment will help improve efficiency and the resilience of immunization supply and cold chain systems. What is more, it will benefit all regional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and up to 5000 primary health facilities, ultimately enabling the safe delivery of immunization services to children across Ukraine.
WHO is also strengthening health professionals’ capacity to respond to cold chain emergencies, through a better understanding of distribution routes, vulnerabilities in transportation and measures to prevent incorrect storage temperature. To that end, simulation exercises and trainings have been conducted in Bolhrad, Odesa and Podilsk.
To help address challenges specifically related to vaccine temperature control, WHO and SIDA are supporting the State Enterprise “Ukrvaktsyna” of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, responsible for storage infrastructure and distribution. In other words, the role of “Ukrvaktsyna” is to make sure the cold chain works seamlessly.
“For our project, ensuring stable storage conditions for medicines, regardless of external circumstances, is of critical importance. Modernizing the heating system will improve the warehouse’s energy efficiency, optimize operational costs and minimize risks to temperature-sensitive medical products. This is another important step towards strengthening the reliability of the logistics infrastructure that underpins the uninterrupted supply of essential medical products to Ukraine's health system,” said Andrii Nahornyi, Chair of the Transformation Commission of the State Enterprise “Ukrvaktsyna”.
About SIDA’s initiative
Funded by Sweden, SIDA provides substantial support to WHO in Ukraine to strengthen the prevention and control of infectious diseases, ensure a safe and reliable blood supply and reinforce public health efforts – areas that are critical both during the war and in the long term. The initiative focuses on 3 areas:
- blood safety support aimed at strengthening the safety and reliability of the national blood supply by ensuring universal access to testing for HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and syphilis at central blood service facilities;
- vaccine cold chain, which focuses on strengthening cold chain systems and implementing robust protocols to ensure the safe storage and transportation of vaccines, supporting an effective national immunization programme; and
- strengthening the public health system by building institutional capacity through evidence-based training, improved laboratory standards, strengthened disease surveillance protocols and leadership development across public health centres and blood service institutions.