Rede de frio para a conservação de vacinas em unidades públicas do município de São Paulo: conhecimento e prática Vaccine storage cold chain in public health units of the City of São Paulo: knowledge and practice

Abstract The cold chain is essential to assure theefficacy of the vaccines used in immu-nization programs. This study aimed toassess the knowledge and the practiceadopted in vaccine storage in publicunits of the city of Sao Paulo. Forms weresent to 390 health units with customactivities, and 80 were selected for a visitand an interview with a health workerand for observation of the refrigerator.An indicator was built to summarizeresults, and scores were given to com-mon items of the tools utilized, establi-shing an arbitrary classification ofSUFFICIENT, REGULAR and INSUFFI-CIENT knowledge/accomplishment.Sixty percent of the units answered theform, all the selected units were visited,and 90 refrigerators were observed.SUFFICIENT results were achieved by66% observations, 55% interviews, and53% formularies. Training in vaccineunits influenced positively higher scoresin observations. Agreement among toolswas low, leading to considerations on theway in which vaccines storage guidelinesare conveyed, along with the need forsystematic supervision to correct thefaults detected.KeywordsKeywords: Vaccines. Cold chain.Immunization Programs. Communityhealth services.Keywords