Dutch innovation gives booster campaign a boost
Large-scale vaccination campaigns are characterized by complex logistical processes. For example, healthcare workers not only have to administer the injections, but also fill the syringes. This 'pulling' is a time-consuming and expensive task that has to be done with extreme precision. Atlas offers help with the Vaxtractor, which pulls up 250 syringes per hour with extreme precision.
The Dutch invention was successfully used for the first time in early December. Thousands of employees of the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam received their booster vaccination with the help of the Vaxtractor. In this academic medical center, the Vaxtractor had already been tested and validated in clinical practice with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. With clear conclusions: the machine draws the right amount of vaccine, works bacteriologically clean and prevents needle stick injuries.
Scaling up Covid-19 vaccination
According to Dr. Liesbeth Ruijgrok, hospital pharmacist at Erasmus MC, the Vaxtractor contributes to the scaling up of the Covid 19 vaccination. “The Vaxtractor can be used safely on a large scale to draw up Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, both in the hospital and outside.” With the Vaxtractor, two employees can fill around two thousand syringes per day. Without the machine, this would require six employees.
Wilfred Weijers, owner of Atlas and the inventor of the 'Vaccine extractor', emphasizes that the Vaxtractor is not only suitable for corona and flu vaccination campaigns. "The device can support all vaccination campaigns, both in hospitals, at vaccination locations and at larger GP practices. In any case, we are ready to expand the production of the Vaxtractor."
Public-private partnership
The development of the Vaxtractor is a textbook example of public-private partnership. For the production of the machine, Atlas enlisted the help of technology developer and producer Demcon. Eltrex Motion supplied the drive and positioning technology for filling the syringes with extreme precision. GGD Brabant-Zuidoost helped to optimize the user-friendliness.
“We were allowed to look at an XL vaccination location at GGD Brabant-Zuidoost and learned a lot from the healthcare workers who manually pulled up syringes there,” says Weijers. “The contact with the healthcare workers is very important, because it allowed us to make the design even more user-friendly. You can come up with a nice machine, but ultimately the users have to be able and willing to work with it.”
Added value
“Public-private partnerships are the future and we are happy to help innovative ideas that advance the fight against Covid-19,” says Ellis Jeurissen, director of public health at GGD Brabant-Zuidoost. “It is fantastic that this has led to an end product that will also be of added value for other vaccination programs.” Coen Waltman, Director of Eltrex Motion, agrees: “We are proud that we have been able to contribute as a partner to a great innovation such as the Vaxtractor from Atlas.”
For more information, please contact Eltrex Motion.
Nederlands