KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- With winter at hand, it is hard to think about the importance of keeping things cool.
Yet, that is exactly what U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center-Europe team members are helping units do.
USAMMC-E Chief of Distribution and Transportation Maj. Brenda S. Sumner said the team has repurposed almost a dozen refrigeration units to assist with distribution and storage of medical materiel for the 30th Medical Brigade and the 16th Sustainment Brigade during missions in Europe.
The devices keep items, such as vaccine, as low as 2-8 degrees.
The 16th Medical Brigade also purchased two “super coolers” with the help of USAMMC-E. The super coolers are capable of maintaining temperatures at -80 degrees Celsius, which is required for some COVID vaccines.
USAMMC-E also provided Temperature Sensitive Medical Product, or TSMP, training.
“Both the 30th and 16th now have increased capacity to manage medical supplies that require storage from two to eight degrees Celsius,” Sumner said, “which includes the majority of all TSMP such as polio vaccine, measles, mumps and rubella, tetanus, typhoid, etcetera and even the Janssen COVID vaccine.”
She said this is part of USAMMC-E’s theater support mission.
“We have to improve operations for the forward distribution elements and share what we already know works really well.”
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