ADDIS ABABA (Semonegna) – The Ethiopian Pharmaceuticals Supply Agency (EPSA) on officially inaugurated, on 3 January 2020, three new cold chain warehouses with an outlay of more than 20 million Birr.
The modern cold chain warehouse featuring three independent cold rooms is capable of operating at temperature ranges from +2.0°C to +8.0°C. The warehouses also have 300 meter cube storage capacity each and will help to enhance the cold storage capacity to 4278 meter cube.
Pharmaceutical finished items and components are more sensitive, subject to damage under specific conditions, great care must be taken to ensure proper handling, storage and transport to ensure component and final product safety and quality. Thus, the trend for refrigerated cold storage warehouses and temperature-controlled transportation is on the rise due to the rise in biologic drug development.
The cold rooms store pharmaceutical items such as vaccine insulin, laboratory reagents and other medical equipment safely. Spare parts of the cold rooms are donated by United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and assembled by by EPSA’s technicians.
The World Health Organization (WHO) mandates that pharmaceutical warehouses need to be efficiently laid out and should contain all the necessary storage areas, goods assembly, packing, receiving and dispatch bays and office and ancillary accommodation needed for the effective operation of the store. Accordingly, cold rooms and freezer rooms are prepared for pharmaceutical products labelled for storage in the sub-zero and +2.0°C to +8.0°C ranges represent a small percentage of all pharmaceuticals. Consequently, in a warehouse storing general pharmaceuticals, cold rooms and freezer rooms will only occupy part of the building. The design requirements for cold rooms and freezer rooms are similar to those described for temperature-controlled stores. That is, depending on the climate, these are likely to include:
- An external building envelope with a high standard of thermal insulation,
- Tight control of air infiltration through the external envelope,
- Control of heat loss and heat gain through door openings; this can be achieved using lobbies and strip curtains,
- Passive or low-energy heating and cooling systems such as ground-source heat pumps, night-time cooling or evaporative cooling,
- Control of temperature stratification using a purpose designed de-stratification system that maintains even temperature distribution throughout the volume of the temperature-controlled zone.
About the Ethiopian Pharmaceuticals Supply Agency (EPSA)
The Ethiopian Pharmaceuticals Supply Agency (EPSA) is legal entity established under the law of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Government to overcome the problems related to the supply and management of pharmaceuticals in the country and assure uninterrupted supply of pharmaceuticals to the public at an affordable price. The Agency was established as the Pharmaceuticals Fund and Supply Agency in September 2007 by Proclamation No. 553/2007 as part of Pharmaceutical Logistic Master Plan implementation with the following objectives:
- to enable public health institutions to supply quality assured essential pharmaceuticals at affordable prices in a sustainable manner to the public,
- to play a complementary role in developmental efforts for health service expansion and strengthening by ensuring enhanced and sustainable supply of pharmaceuticals, and
- to create enabling conditions for enhancing the accumulation of funds in its revolving and cost recovery process and thereby ensure the realization of the objectives