Company to Provide Bundle Service for 212 Refrigerators

VN001 Providing bundle service of WHO supported refrigerators to make them utilize at distributed districts

Background

The Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) in Vietnam is a national network including 4 regional EPI offices, 63 Provincial Preventive Medicine Centers, 713 district health centers. Vaccines are distributed with cold chain system for immunization services, which are specifically required and regulated

EPI review and Effective Vaccine Management Assessment in 2015 recommended to replace old refrigerators at province and district levels that are used for more than 10 years. National EPI developed Cold Chain Improvement Plan, and has been strengthening cold chain system including equipment, staff capacity development for maintenance and repairment supported by international donors and partners in recent years. In 2017, Party resolution described new vaccine introduction plan; two vaccines by 2025 and another two vaccines by 2030. Current capacity of cold chain needs to be further upgraded to introduce new vaccines in coming years as per resolution.

Furthermore, in 2020, COVID-19 pandemic occurs. As a global coordinated response, numbers of vaccines against COVID-19 have been developed and several vaccine candidates are in advanced clinical trial stage, and even some of them started to be approved as emergency use as of Dec 2020. COVAX Facility was established by WHO, GAVI vaccine alliance, and CEPI, global coalition, to ensure equitable and affordable access to COVID- 19 vaccines. WHO has been providing support to countries in developing national vaccine deployment plan and its implementation to be ready for smooth vaccine provision to the people needed. As one of the readiness supports, WHO Representative Office in Viet Nam and Western Pacific Regional Office have approved the request of refrigerator procurement support from National EPI, and currently under procuring process of the 212 pieces of TCW4000AC (WHO PQS E003/066) with associated services for 212 health facilities of district level. Specifications of procured equipment and associated services in detail are referred in the Annex 1. A district list the refrigerators to be distributed is also provided in the Annex 2.

As dispatch of procured products to Viet Nam, there is critical need to support bundle service, which is accountable for in-country logistics from receipt at the port, transportation, installation and on-site instruction to ensure the refrigerators to be safely distributed, settled and utilized at localities. WHO Representative Office in Viet Nam, therefore, commissions a contract to provide bundle service of WHO supported refrigerators in Viet Nam.