Coronavirus vaccine preservation, should you be concerned?

BATTLE FOR WORLD | September 23, 2020: Yahoo posted an article on Wednesday (Sept 23) giving a summary progress on the various vaccines being developed in the West for the coronavirus COVID-19, highlighting some of the positives.

Over the many decades the West has been embroiled in controversies with preservatives formulated into vaccines to stabilize their shelf life. The internet search engines will show several debate articles about the preservatives thimerosal, mercury, etc. used in vaccines.

The Western COVID-19 vaccines mentioned in the article included Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and AstraZeneca summarizing how far they are in the trials.

The article noted that the J&J candidate did not require the same deep-freeze temperatures for storage that are making the two leading candidates (referring Moderna and Pfizer) a challenge to distribute. The adenovirus vector technology [from chimpanzee] does require refrigeration, but that the existing vaccine infrastructure in place uses normal temperature in final storage, which goes well for global distribution and production – making the investment profitable – and cheaper . (BattleForWorld: Meaning that a preservative is added to the vaccine so that it can be stored at normal temperature or normal refrigeration. These types of vaccines are generally marketed in tropical climates by the West.)

An article appeared in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) titled “COVID-19 Vaccine Race Turns Deep Freezers Into a Hot Commodity”: Moderna stored its vaccine at minus 70 degrees Celsius, but said it has done further study and now plans to ship the shots at minus 20. While Pfizer said its coronavirus vaccine remains frozen at minus 70 degrees Celsius. AstraZeneca said it expects its vaccine to need only refrigeration. (BattleForWorld: The latter, this implies it is using some type of preservative.)

The big problem in the United States and other countries not setup to support the minus 70 degrees Celsius, etc. distribution requirement is getting enough specialized freezers in hospitals, pharmacies and doctors’ offices for the expected vaccination sites.

The COVID-19 vaccines that require normal refrigeration it remains unknown how well they will do in the final trial phase.

…

END