The following flow chart shows a quick summary of who is responsible for resolving a COVID-19 CCI depending on whether it occurs at the distributor, during transit, or in the pharmacy’s possession.
Reporting Cold Chain Incidents
If a CCI occurs in your pharmacy, follow the SOP: Reporting COVID-19 Cold Chain Incidents.
• For pharmacies located in VIHA, follow SOP Intake Process for Reporting COVID-19 Vaccine Cold Chain Incident for Community Pharmacies.
Red dotting procedure: physically marking impacted vials
To ensure that all staff members that handle vaccine are made aware of vials that underwent a temperature excursion, the vials must be red-dotted or visibly marked to denote which vials have been impacted. This is especially critical in the event that subsequent temperature excursions occur to the affected vials which could impact the usability of the vaccine.
Redistributing impacted vials: CCI documentation
Redistributing impacted vaccines to new sites is considered very high risk. See Pharmacy Transfers vaccines. Sub-lots are used in health authorities to track vaccine that have undergone temperature excursions and are being redistributed. Creating a sub-lot in ImmsBC is not required at the pharmacy level.
However, if impacted vials are transported to another clinic for use, all related CCI documentation must travel along with the vaccines. This documentation should include:
- Date of the cold chain incident
- Summary of the incident
- Total time of temperature excursion
- Max excursion temperature