Cold Chain Management
The injectable hormones used in infertility clinics are expensive and very sensitive to heat and light. They should be stored in the right place at the specified temperature. Mostly, between 2 – 8 degrees Celsius. A strict cold chain should be maintained right from the production till the end of the supply chain and patient usage. Therefore, it is very important to use drugs from a trustworthy and reliable company. We use products of Merck which is a premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company in the world having best-in-class cold chain management. The manufacturing unit of Merck is in Switzerland. Reefer vehicles maintain active cooling and envirotainers take care of passive cooling till the manufactured goods reach Mumbai Airport. After custom house clearance at Mumbai Airport, the entire consignment is shifted to walk-in coolers or chambers within 30 minutes. Data about the temperature maintenance is retrieved from data loggers to evaluate cold chain efficacy during the entire shipment process.
If the temperature is not within the product storage conditions, products and data loggers are sent back through approved couriers to originating units. An alarm system is in place to notify any changes in set temperature. Reefer vehicles or cool vans are used to transport drugs from the airport to the central warehouse. Validated Poly-urethene (PU) cold chain boxes with gel packs or jumbo thermocol boxes that can maintain the temperature for up to 48 hours are used for transit from warehouse to distributor or stockist. Temperature is monitored using 3M labels or warm mark labels. The cold chain is promptly taken care of in the pharmacy and clinic using special cooling chambers, an uninterrupted power supply, and temperature clocks. Special cold pouches are available for patients. Priority is given to appropriate cold chain management at every stage to maintain efficacy in Infertility treatment protocols at Krishna IVF Clinic.