Important changes to the Victorian Vaccine Cold Chain Management Protocols
Latest immunisation news from the Department of Health Immunisation Unit:
- Immunisation providers must report all cold chain breaches for government funded vaccines that have been exposed to temperatures outside of the recommended +2°C to +8°C cold chain range. This excludes fluctuations up to +12°C lasting no longer than 15 minutes when restocking, cleaning the vaccine refrigerator or vaccine stock taking.
- Review changes to the department’s Cold Chain breach reporting procedure.
- Immediately discard the Victorian Department of Health cold chain breach refrigerator magnet. Example of the magnet.
- Update your vaccine storage and cold chain management policies and protocols to reflect the change in CCB reporting requirements.
- For continued access to government funded vaccines, all government vaccine account holders are required to nominate a Vaccine Coordinator and back up person to complete the department’s Clinical/Vaccine Coordinator Cold Chain Management eLearning module.
- The certificate of completion for this module must be uploaded to the department’s Cold Chain Management eLearning certificate portal.
The department strongly encourages all other staff involved in vaccine storage and cold chain management (including receipt of deliveries) to complete the Cold chain management eLearning module relevant to their role and keep their certificates on file for review when requested by the department.