Transporting millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine that requires deep refrigeration is challenging, and one company has improved its tuna container to do just that.

Thermo King, the company that revolutionized the transportation of food through advanced temperature control methods before World War II, is working with pharmaceutical companies, governments and logistics companies to secure vaccines.

To do this, they revamped the container used to transport tuna to Japan, which requires refrigeration at similar conditions to a vaccine.

Tuna fish requires refrigeration at -60 degrees Celsius to maintain its quality and its deep red color when it arrives at supermarkets and restaurants, Incalza said.

So, Thermo King added insulation in the container, adjusted deeper cooling system, to make each of its containers longer than 6 meters able to hold 300,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine, the first vaccine to be used by countries.

Pharmaceutical products usually have to be refrigerated at 2-8 degrees C during shipping, but Pfizer's vaccine is different.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine on December 11.

Another vaccine made by Moderna (MRNA), which also uses mRNA technology, could be approved by governments in the next few weeks.

Supply chain experts say storing mRNA vaccines at sufficiently cold temperatures is one of the major problems facing vaccine distribution around the world.

"There is a need for careful and concrete planning," said Burak Kazaz, professor of supply chain management at Syracuse University, New York State, USA.

This technology is not cheap.

"If we keep the right temperature, we can transport anything anywhere and store for as long as we want," Jackson said.

According to Jackson, Frederick McKinley Jones and Joseph Numero, two founders of the Thermo King, have contributed to this.

According to the US Department of Transportation, Thermo King has grown rapidly during World War II, when their technology was used to preserve blood, medicine and food.

Years later, Thermo King continues to play a pivotal role in handling another crisis.

It is an improved tuna shipping container.

Predicting demand will skyrocket, Thermo King started ramping up production of new refrigerated containers at its factory in China a few months ago, Incalza said.

"When next spring, billions of billions of doses of vaccine will need to be distributed," he said.

In addition to the pandemic, this improved container could also prove useful for new gene therapy and biopharmaceuticals, which also require transport and storage in heat, he noted.

"More and more products need to be shipped at extremely low temperatures, so a new market for this type of equipment is opening up," he said.

However, major challenges persist, including how to transport vaccines to underdeveloped areas where there is a lack of refrigeration infrastructure at comparable temperatures.

Security is also an issue to note.

Delivering vaccines is certainly a difficult task, but Michael Berg, CEO of Envirotainer, a Swedish company that transports refrigerated pharmaceuticals by air, thinks the cold chain industry can do just that.

"It will take a lot of options and every company has to improve capacity," Berg said.