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Cold chain management

A cold chain breach occurs when vaccine temperatures are outside +2 to +8 °C during vaccine storage or transport.

As a condition to receive government-funded vaccines, the cold chain management protocol must be followed in accordance with the National Vaccine Storage Guidelines – Strive for 5 (external site) for transporting and storing vaccines.

Providers must advise their WA Health public health unit (Healthy WA) when a cold chain breach occurs or to seek thermal stability advice for other incidents where government-funded vaccines are involved.

Cold chain breach and wastage reporting

Providers should follow the WA cold chain protocol (PDF 60KB) then use the process outlined within the specific form from the table below, to report the incident or wastage.

Choose the form according to the incident type and provider ordering method Providers who order through Toll On-line Ordering System (excludes Pharmacist lnfluenza Immunisation Trial) Pharmacist Influenza Immunisation Trial (Fluad Quad only)
CCB Cold Chain Breach and Vaccine Wastage Form (PDF 127KB) Pharmacy cold chain breach and incident report form (PDF 173KB)
Expiry (Influenza vaccines) Influenza Vaccine Expiry Report Form (Government-Funded Vaccines only) (external site)
Expiry (non-influenza vaccines) Cold Chain Breach and Vaccine Wastage Form (PDF 127KB) N/A

For Pharmacist Influenza Immunisation Trial, if influenza vaccines provided for the trial are involved in a cold chain breach, visit the Pharmacist influenza vaccination trial webpage for further information.

Cold chain management resources

More information

Last reviewed: 07-12-2020
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Public Health

wa.gov.au