Tag Archive for: vaccines

Ethiopia is at a pivotal moment in its efforts to improve the health status of its people and move the country into a new phase of social and economic development. The country’s massive Health Extension Program (HEP) program has placed over 34,000 community health workers in 14,000 health posts in less than 8 years. Now, health authorities are exploring ways to improve the program with mobile solutions.

Sponsored by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Vital Wave Consulting authored the “mHealth in Ethiopia: Strategies for a new Framework” report for the Ethiopian Ministry of Health. The report offers a framework for addressing specific information, communication and inventory management issues with mHealth interventions.

Download the report by clicking the link below – and let us know what you think in the comments!

Children and women waiting to get diagnosed in clinic. Photo Credit: WHO

In the wake of the drought and famine being experienced in the Horn of Africa, multiple vaccination campaigns have been launched in the region. UNICEF, WHO and Kenya’s Ministry of Health (MOH) are launching a campaign for the children situated in the Dadaab refugee camp in Northern Kenya, which is already triple the amount beyond its refugee capacity. UNICEF is also launching a solo campaign for children in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on Somalia.

The UNICEF and WHO-backed campaign in Dadaab will target 202,665 children under five years of age, with measles and polio vaccines, together with Vitamin A and de-worming tablets. The campaign is part of a regional push to ensure all children in drought affected areas are vaccinated against a killer disease like measles which can be deadly for malnourished children, and be protected from polio.

The solo UNICEF campaign for the rest of the Horn of Africa includes a strategy to vaccinate every child in Somalia under the age of 15 against measles which totals over 2.5 million children.

“This is a child survival crisis,” said Elhadj As Sy, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa. “Children don’t die just because they don’t have enough food. In various stages of malnutrition, they are more prone to sickness and disease. As big a challenge as the rates of malnutrition pose, the danger for children extends even further.”

“Malnutrition can weaken a child’s immune system, increasing their susceptibility to infectious diseases like measles and polio,” says Ibrahim Conteh, UNICEF Dadaab Emergency Coordinator. “We are acting now because these diseases can spread very quickly in overcrowded conditions like we have now in the camps.”

Measles is a highly contagious disease which can flourish in unsanitary and overcrowded environments like refugee camps. Measles reduces a child’s resistance to illness and makes them more likely to die when they are malnourished and suffering from other diseases.

Launching a vaccination campaign in the Horn of Africa is no simple task, even without a drought crisis to worry about. The region experiences atrocious coverage rates as evidenced by Southern Somalia where vaccination coverage is just 26%, one of the lowest in the world.

This suggests that there may be issues with the cold chain transportation of vaccines in the region. In the developing world, transporting vaccinations is complicated as high temperatures, scarce resources, unreliable electricity, and long distances between health care facilities can all break the chain.

Mobile vaccine refrigerator. Photo Credit: True Energy

This means that as UNICEF, WHO and the Kenyan MOH roll out of their campaigns, they must take extra precautions to make sure vaccine spoilage is minimized as much as possible. So many children’s lives depend on the vaccines being functional and on time.

Most, if not all of the vaccines being distributed in the campaigns will be transported using mobile vaccine refrigerators. There are mobile refrigerators currently in use all over the developing world that utilize innovative vaccine monitoring systems.

SmartConnect box

True Energy, a company highlighted in the past supplies a grid powered or solar powered refrigerator that offers vial vaccine monitoring to monitor the temperature of the vaccines along the cold chain. They also include a SmartConnect SMS monitoring system that sends out an SMS to the recipient alerting them of temperature changes along the cold chain for instantaneous monitoring.

PATH is one organization that has purchased these vaccine refrigerators with the SmartConnect capability. UNICEF has also commissioned these refrigerators from True Energy and is shipping the refrigerators for use in over 30 countries. Furthermore, the True Energy refrigerators meet WHO cold chain requirements.

Therefore, there should be no excuse for inadequate monitoring of vaccines amidst the vaccination campaigns. The technologies exist to ensure cold chain efficiency. Moreover, UNICEF and WHO have both recently dabbled with these existing technologies.

With reports that the drought in the Horn of Africa has not yet reached its peak, the vaccination efforts must be successful or millions of children may suffer the consequences.

Camel without refrigerator attached. Photo Credit: Art Center College of Design

The PATH initiative, which advances malaria vaccines, recently predicted that over ten times more vaccine storage will be needed in the developing world over the next 15 years. However, transporting and managing vaccines in developing countries faces many obstacles, including inhospitable climates, poor infrastructure, lack of electricity and disparate communities.

As a result, over 1 million people die every year in developing nations due to vaccine-preventable diseases. In some cases, vaccines may be reaching these populations, but when they do, they are no longer functional because they were not adequately cooled. Most vaccines must be stored within a certain temperature range in order to remain functional. Health organizations are increasingly turning to technology to help them do just that.

Fridge about to be loaded onto camel. Photo Credit: Art Center College of Design

Many NGOs and ministries of health make use of mobile vaccine refrigerators that harness solar energy to power the internal chamber that holds the vaccines. A particularly innovative and resourceful vaccine refrigerator came on the backs of camels. Naps’ Camel Fridge was designed back in 2005 and operates off of solar power. The fridge uses solar panels to harness energy, and sits on the backs of camels that transport the fridges to rural destinations. Over 1,500 of these camel fridges have been sold to WHO and UNICEF programs.

But if a shipment of vaccines arrives spoiled, it is important to know where in the logistics chain the temperature was breached so that changes can be made to prevent a recurrence.

However, some issues with these mobile refrigerators are temperature maintenance and vaccine spoilage. A practical gadget that has made cold chain storage more efficient is a technology that involves vaccine monitoring. SmartConnect, a technology developed by Inveneo that uses existing cell phone networks for data communication, can monitor vaccines by sending information about the arrival time and temperatures of vaccines in transit. That way, officials will know not only if a vaccine has spoiled, but when and where the problem may have occurred.

Sure Chill Vaccine Refrigerator Photo Credit: True Energy

SmartConnect is not the only project making use of SMS technology. True Energy’s Sure Chill Vaccine Refrigerators, which are WHO pre-certified, can store vaccines at a constant optimal temperature, without power, for up to ten days while using a vaccine vial monitoring system that records temperature changes and can send an SMS to indicate those changes.

True Energy has already shipped multiple units to Senegal and Vietnam under project Optimize, a WHO/PATH collaboration, and aims to ship many more units to countries like South Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Yemen, India and many more.

Incorporating mobile monitoring technologies and improving the efficiency of the fridges could make a tremendous impact on the success of many vaccination programs.  And if PATH’s prediction rings true, they will be greatly needed.

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