Study Suggests Vial Size Can Have Large Impact on Vaccine Supply Chain

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Vaccine vial size – the total number of doses a single vaccine vial contains – can have a significant impact on vaccine distribution, costs and use, according to a new study by researchers at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In a computer model of the vaccine supply chain of the West African nation of Benin, vial-size decisions had far-reaching and reverberating effects throughout the vaccine supply chain. Vial size greatly impacted supply chain logistics, increasing and decreasing constraints and bottlenecks depending on the combination of vial sizes used, with considerable effect on the availability of vaccines. The output of the model, generated by the HERMES software platform developed at Hopkins and PSC, holds great promise for improving the supply of vaccines and other medical tools in Benin, low-income nations and the entire world.

Read the full press release here.