Change In The Storage Of Covid Vaccines:
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended a change to the approved storage conditions of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine which changes the way these vaccines are handled in vaccination centers across the European Union (EU).
- With the new recommendations, an unopened thawed vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can be stored between 2-8 degrees Celsius for up to a month, which means that it can be stored in a regular refrigerator once it has been taken out of the deep freeze.
- Before this, an unopened thawed vaccine vial could be kept in a regular refrigerator for a period of only up to five days.
- This increased flexibility in storing and handling the vaccines is expected to positively impact the vaccine rollout in the EU, which has faced some problems since the vaccination drive started.
- mRNA vaccines need to be stored at much lower temperatures than some other kind of COVID-19 vaccines because RNA is much less stable than DNA, which is due to the sugars that their molecules are made up of.
- The second reason for the relative instability of RNA is its shape, which is a single strand, while DNA is expressed as a double-stranded helix.
