NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. regulators allow Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to be discarded and stored at a less frigid temperature, which should dispense and administer one of the two authorized vaccines to facilitate emergency use in the country.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it approves the additional option after reviewing new data from New York-based Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech.
The FDA said the vaccine, which is put into frozen filters, can now be transported and stored for up to two weeks at freezing temperatures typically found under suspicion. That’s after Pfizer released data to the FDA on Feb. 19 which showed that the vaccine remains stable for up to two weeks at that normal freezer temperature.
Until now, the vaccine had to be kept at very cold temperatures – from 112 degrees to minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 80 degrees to minus 60 degrees Celsius) – so Pfizer puts the filters in a container special thermal filled with dry ice to maintain that temperature range. That requirement meant that vaccine sites had to obtain expensive ultracold freezers, continue to add dry ice to the shipping mast to maintain the correct temperature range, or quickly deliver the doses in each carrier so that none damaged.
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