Vaccine cold chain monitoring
Vaccine cold chain monitoring watches every fridge, cold room and reefer against the temperature band your vaccines require, and raises an alert the moment the reading leaves it — high or, just as damaging, too low. Trakora keeps the record an immunisation programme needs to prove the chain held.
Vaccine cold chain monitoring at a glance
- What it monitors
- Vaccine fridges, cold rooms, reefer trucks
- Excursion alerts
- temp_above_threshold · temp_below_threshold
- The under-served angle
- Freeze — too-cold damage, not just too-hot
- Sensor-gap alert
- sensor_offline
- Cold-chain band
- Configurable — commonly 2–8 °C† for EPI vaccines
- Record output
- Compliance reports + live charts
- Standards framing
- WHO-PQS / EPI immunisation workflow
- Also charted
- Humidity (monitored & charted — no humidity alarm shipped)
- Sensor accuracy
- —† per sensor on quote
- Per-sensor price
- —† see cold-chain pricing
A vaccine can be ruined by being too cold
Everyone watches for the fridge that warms up. Far fewer watch for the one that freezes — yet freezing permanently damages many vaccines, and it happens silently against the back wall of a fridge set slightly too low. The freeze alarm is the half of the cold chain most monitoring forgets.
The reading drops below the band
A probe in the fridge or cold room reads below the low edge of the configured band. Trakora raises temp_below_threshold — a freeze excursion — distinct from the high-side temp_above_threshold, because the two failures need different responses.
A named freeze excursion
The excursion is labelled by fridge and by direction — freeze, not simply "out of range" — and reaches the responsible officer by SMS, WhatsApp and push. The live chart shows how far below the band it went and for how long, which is what a cold-chain officer needs to judge the batch.
Quarantine, don't guess
With a timestamped freeze record the officer can quarantine the affected vaccines and follow the shake-test / disposal procedure, instead of discovering the loss at the point of use. The record is the evidence the immunisation programme keeps.
Excursion log — cold room Dar EPI store
| Time (EAT) | Fridge | Reading | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:00 | Store fridge 1 | 4.2 °C | In band |
| 02:10 | Store fridge 2 | −0.4 °C | Freeze excursion |
| 14:35 | Cold room A | 9.6 °C | High excursion |
| 18:00 | Reefer T 634 CFT | 5.1 °C | In band |
Illustrative figures for layout only — not a customer record. Note the state is named in words, never by colour alone. The band shown (2–8 °C) is a configured value.
The record WHO-PQS work depends on
Every capability below is a real feature of the cold-chain module — framed for a vaccine programme, not invented for it.
Continuous temperature monitoring
Every fridge, cold room and reefer read continuously against its own band — the whole immunisation cold chain on one screen.
/ temp-monitoringConfigurable thresholds
Set the high and low edges per unit — the 2–8 °C EPI band, or a tighter range for a specific antigen.
/ thresholdsCompliance reports
Exportable temperature records per unit and per period — the audit trail a WHO-PQS review or a donor asks for.
/ compliance-reportsLive charts
See the excursion as it happens and how long it lasted — the detail that decides whether a batch is saved or lost.
/ live-chartsSensor-gap alert
If a probe stops reporting, sensor_offline fires — because a gap in the record is exactly what an auditor will find.
/ sensor_offlineReefer transport
The same monitoring on a reefer truck between store and clinic, tied to the fleet module for location.
/ coldchain + fleetHonest limits
Trakora is a monitoring platform. Being precise about what that is — and is not — is part of a cold-chain tool's job.
What this cannot do
- Trakora is not a certified medical device and is not itself WHO-PQS pre-qualified. It is a monitoring and record-keeping platform that works alongside your PQS-qualified fridges, cold boxes and data loggers — it does not replace them or certify them.
- It raises temperature excursions (high and low). Humidity is monitored and charted, but the module ships no humidity alarm rule — do not rely on it to page you on humidity. Whether a humidity threshold is configurable is —† to confirm.
- The cold-chain band, and whether a given batch is still usable after an excursion, are clinical decisions you own. Trakora gives the timestamped evidence; the shake-test, quarantine and disposal call stay with your cold-chain officer.
- Sensors report over GSM. In a dead zone readings buffer and backfill on reconnection, with their original timestamps — not lost, but not live during the gap.
- Sensor accuracy and calibration are per-sensor and are confirmed on quote, not published here as a headline figure.
What it costs
Cold-chain is billed per monitored sensor, in TZS, with a TRA-EFD VAT invoice — and it is one of the few modules you can start on a free trial. The per-sensor figure is —† confirmed against your fridge and sensor count; see the cold-chain pricing page for the tiers.
The 2–8 °C band is the range commonly required for EPI vaccines and is quoted here as a widely-used reference, configured per unit in the product — not a Trakora measurement. Figures shown as — are to be confirmed — no per-sensor price or sensor-accuracy figure is fixed on this page, and whether a humidity threshold rule is configurable is unconfirmed. No number here is invented.
Frequently asked questions
Can a vaccine be ruined by being too cold?
Yes — freezing permanently damages many vaccines. That is why the temp_below_threshold freeze alarm exists as a distinct alert from the high-temperature one.
Is Trakora a certified WHO-PQS device?
No. Trakora is a monitoring and record-keeping platform. It works alongside your PQS-qualified fridges and loggers; it does not replace or certify them.
What temperature band does it use?
Whatever you configure per unit. The 2–8 °C EPI band is the common choice, but you set the high and low edges for each fridge or antigen.
Does it alarm on humidity too?
Humidity is monitored and charted, but the module ships no humidity alarm rule. Rely on it for temperature excursions; treat humidity as a chart, not a pager.
What happens if a sensor stops reporting?
The sensor_offline rule fires, so a gap in the record is flagged rather than silently left in the log for an auditor to find.
Can I prove the chain held for a donor or audit?
Yes — the compliance reports export a timestamped temperature record per unit and period, which is the evidence a WHO-PQS review or donor audit asks for.
More on cold chain
Protect your immunisation cold chain
Tell us how many fridges, cold rooms and reefers you run, and we will scope monitoring — freeze and high-temperature alarms and a WHO-PQS-ready record — in TZS, with Swahili support.