Direct Relief, a Santa Barbara-based humanitarian aid nonprofit organization, is expanding its cold-storage capacity to store and distribute temperature-sensitive coronavirus vaccines.
As of Tuesday, Direct Relief had not received COVID-19 vaccines for storage or distribution at its facility, headquartered at 6100 Wallace Becknell Road.
However, the organization is written into the State of California’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan as a backup storage site for the Southern California area, which is home to about 20 million people.
Direct Relief is standing by to assist and support the efforts largely managed by public health officials at the state and county levels.
“We are preparing to be able to handle any scenario,” Direct Relief President/CEO Thomas Tighe said. “We are here on their team, and they can call us whenever they need to.”
Direct Relief has added to the organization’s existing three-story, 2,800-square-foot cold room during the past few months.
The organization’s freezer capacity and medical refrigeration now include five powered cold-box units that the State of California has staged at Direct Relief, two ultra-low-temperature freezers from the state, one pharma-grade walk-in freezer, and two walk-in freezers to condition shipping boxes and inserts to the appropriate temperature.
Two state-supplied ultra-low-temperature freezers can each hold about 415,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and they’re operating at minus-70 degrees Celsius.
Five state-supplied cold-box refrigerated units can store more than 1.1 million doses of the Moderna vaccine. The cold box keeps shipments in a minus-20 degrees Celsius environment.
The 20-foot, walk-in pharma-grade freezer is more than 350 cubic feet inside, and it can hold about 1.3 million doses of the Moderna vaccine. The freezer has the temperature set at minus-20 degrees Celsius.
“What we have is essentially storage capacity,” Tighe said. “We can store, we can pack and transport in the appropriate cold boxes if needed.
“Anything we can provide — any of our operational capability, anything for inventory management — we will make that available to anybody for the public benefit in California. We live here, and always work closely in a supportive role with Santa Barbara County, the department of public health as well as many of the other counties around the state.”
The COVID-19 vaccine supply will be the No. 1 issue to vaccinating more Californians as state officials continue to work to ramp up vaccine administration, according to the governor’s office.
The first COVID-19 vaccines were delivered and administered to frontline health care workers in Santa Barbara County more than a month ago.
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department will follow guidelines from the California Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to prioritize a phased vaccine distribution in the county, public health said.
Meanwhile, Direct Relief is also supporting COVID-19 vaccination efforts in Puerto Rico, and it’s helping set up 11 vaccination sites around the island.
Direct Relief has equipped health facilities in Puerto Rico, many of which are administering the COVID-19 vaccine, with more than 160 pharmaceutical-grade refrigerators, which together can hold an estimated 6 million vials of temperature-sensitive medication.
The organization made sure health facilities have some backup power, typically a solar system with a battery attached to ensure that refrigeration and computer servers could function even if the grid tower shut down.
“The grid tower was unreliable, and that created a huge problem after Hurricane Maria,” Tighe said. “It’s the tropic, and solar makes a lot of sense.”
Direct Relief focused on rebuilding the cold storage capability and backup power availability for the community health centers in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in September 2017. Direct Relief is a primary channel for distributing essential medical aid and medications to a nonprofit safety-net provider on the island.
Direct Relief is a humanitarian aid organization, active in all 50 states and more than 80 countries, with a goal of improving the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies — without regard to politics, religion or ability to pay, according to the organization’s mission.
In 2019, the organization’s new corporate headquarters was finished. Direct Relief’s location is nearly four times the size of its previous space in Goleta, and the site features a 155,000-square-foot pharmaceutical warehouse.
“It has allowed us to deal with a surge of activity where it would require the intake and processing of material that needs to come in and get out, as well as the licensing requirements that were related to maintaining our accreditation as a drug distributor,” Tighe said.
Click here for more information about Direct Relief.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 vaccine tracker showed that more than 24 million people in the United States had received at least one dose as of Saturday. Vaccine doses are allocated based on population and other demographics, and Santa Barbara County orders vaccines on a weekly basis.
Public Health vaccination clinics, hospitals, doctor’s offices and pharmacies are providing vaccinations, and the county community data dashboard tracks administration numbers — how many shots have been given to people so far — which can be delayed by a few days, according to the county.
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department has vaccine-related information on its COVID-19 page here: https://publichealthsbc.org. It includes information on the vaccination distribution plan and groups that are currently eligible for vaccine appointments.
The Public Health Department email address for questions from the general public is vaccine@sbcphd.org.
The 2-1-1 call center is staffed with people who can answer questions about COVID-19 in Santa Barbara County, including vaccine questions, according to the Public Health Department. The center can be reached at 2-1-1, or 800.400.1572 for out-of-area numbers.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.