How to conduct temperature mapping for vaccine storage: WHO’s latest 2024 guidelines & tool

The World Health Organization (WHO) Effective Vaccine Management (EVM) initiative sets standards for safe vaccine handling and storage to ensure that heat and freezing temperatures do not damage vaccines. The standards require all vaccine cold and freezer rooms to be temperature mapped routinely every 2 years.

Temperature mapping and temperature monitoring are integral to the appropriate storage conditions for pharmaceuticals. Temperature mapping is the process of recording and mapping temperatures within three-dimensional (3D) spaces, such as cold and freezer rooms, dry storage areas, and refrigerator and freezer units. Temperatures will not be the same everywhere within the storage area. Whether in a small refrigerator, a well-designed cold or freezer room, or, particularly, in a large warehouse, temperatures can vary by as much as 10°C from one location to another within the same unit.

In June 2024, the WHO released the latest updated version of its Temperature mapping (TM) tool. The 2024 version comes with a user guide integrated into the TM tool and accessible through the “help” button in each worksheet.

A separate user guide was developed in 2022 for those with limited computer knowledge. It provides a step-by-step approach to temperature mapping of storage areas or equipment. The application it presents can be used for temperature mapping of cold and freezer rooms, refrigerators and freezers, and dry stores.

Users familiar with MS Excel and other computer programmes will learn the temperature mapping method faster.

Find out more about this temperature mapping tool on the WHO website.

Sources

WHO, 2024. Cold chain equipment and dry store temperature mapping tool. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/cold-chain-equipment-and-dry-store-temperature-mapping-tool

WHO, 2022. How to temperature map cold chain equipment and storage areas (second edition). https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240042773