Maintaining the cold chain in emergencies: a challenge being met by Atlas Logistics

Ensuring the safe storage of vaccines, medicine, and other health products is a major challenge, fraught with difficulties including a lack of infrastructure, power cuts, and difficult access to isolated areas.

Every year, around 50% of vaccines are wasted due to cold chain problems, compromising access to healthcare for millions of people worldwide (source: WHO). To address these issues, HI/Atlas Logistics deploys adapted management solutions to maintain the cold chain, enabling NGOs to provide quality care wherever it's needed.

Why is the cold chain so important?

Sensitive medical products must be stored at precise temperatures to remain effective. For example, vaccines, chemotherapies, insulins and neonatal care products need to be kept at between 35°F and 46°F, while other medicines require a controlled temperature of between 59°F and 77°F. If the temperature is too high or too low, these products can lose their effectiveness, fail to work as intended, or even become toxic.

“Maintaining a reliable cold chain in a humanitarian context is a real challenge, but it’s necessary in order to guarantee the effectiveness of vaccines and medicines,” explains Jade, Cold Chain Specialist at Atlas Logistics.

The following example illustrates this complexity:

 “In Ukraine, we distributed chemotherapy for an NGO called Mission Kharkiv, based near the front line. Temperatures had to be strictly controlled, with no room for the slightest variation. One degree of difference and it would all have been lost. It was a difficult and demanding job, but a real success,” says Jade.

An adapted response

To meet these challenges and enable medical NGOs to guarantee quality care, HI/Atlas Logistics has developed expertise in medical logistics and cold chain management:

• Facilitating access to healthcare for isolated populations by ensuring reliable transport and storage of healthcare products, even in the most inaccessible areas;
• Training local teams of NGOs, health centers, etc. to strengthen their pharmaceutical management competencies and guarantee sustainable best practices.

Pharmacists play a crucial role in this process. They supervise drug management and ensure that transport and storage standards are scrupulously respected. Their expertise ensures that each product delivered retains its therapeutic effectiveness, a key factor in the success of medical interventions in crisis zones.

Jade explains that contingency plans are put in place to deal with unforeseen events, such as temperature variations or power cuts. Each team member plays a specific role to ensure optimum responsiveness. A connected system enables remote and continuous monitoring and the adjustment of warehouse temperatures. In the event of a problem, a text alert is sent immediately.

An impact on everyone’s life

HI/Atlas Logistics's objective is simple: to save lives by maintaining a reliable cold chain. Through this expertise, it helps to protect at-risk populations, particularly during health crises or in conflict zones. The improved temperature management of healthcare products avoids unnecessary product waste, reduces the risks associated with poorly preserved treatments, and increases healthcare coverage.

“What makes me proud is knowing that our work helps thousands of people every day. Every time we succeed in maintaining the ideal temperature for a vaccine or medicine, we know that we have helped to save lives,” concludes Jade.

Atlas Logistics is one of Humanity & Inclusion’s technical and operational units, specializing in the delivery of aid in support of humanitarian organizations and the H2H (Humanitarian-to-Humanitarian) system. Since 1991, Atlas has been developing innovative solutions adapted to acute and chronic crises in close collaboration with both public and private humanitarian actors.
Its cold chain expertise, developed over the last 3 years and deployed in five countries, provides solutions for the storage, transport and distribution of medicines and vaccines requiring controlled temperatures, and provides support to humanitarian actors through capacity building.