ROCHESTER, NY (WROC) — With all the many challenges that come with vaccine distribution, ensuring it is safely transported is first step in fighting the virus.

A local company is helping to do just that.

Vuzix, a business in East Henrietta, is manufacturing technology that helps workers get the COVID-19 vaccine onto airplanes and into the hospitals where it is needed most.

Vaccines arriving in New York state made the trip by plane, but ensuring they make it to their final destination safely is no easy task.

“If these giant containers start moving around in an airplane it can cause all types of problems in the airplane,” said Paul Travers, Vuzix CEO, “and getting that right, getting the vaccines in correctly it’s a big deal and they’re using our smart glasses to help enable that now.”

Vuzix is using technology being manufactured right here in the area to help connect workers on the plane with experts at remote locations who can train them and use the glasses can track where each package is.

“The person that’s doing the loading can do inspections with the glasses record everything, prove and confirm that it got done right and have that all logged in,” said Travers.

The distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine has many obstacles due freezing and storing requirements.

The Pfizer vaccine ships in dry ice and once it arrives here in Rochester, it is stored at the University of Rochester Medical Center, which purchased freezers to manage the frozen vaccine inventory. They say the teams will have less than 2 minutes to transfer the vaccine from the shipping cartons into the freezers.

Vuxiz, which has been in Rochester for over 20 years and has nearly 100 employees, is happy to take part in manufacturing technology that will help that fight.

“So we’re enabling things all over the place and this particularly one is great because it’s the beginning of the end of COVID,” said Travers.