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From: Thomson Reuters Foundation
From: Thomson Reuters Foundation
From: Thomson Reuters Foundation
From: Thomson Reuters Foundation
By Peyton Fleming
BOSTON, 31 October (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Dozens of young people at a clinic in North Kivu, on the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), won a measles vaccine in May, imaginable thanks to a silent cooling revolution that helps keep vaccines cold, even in places without reliable power supplies.
“Direct Sun Drive” refrigerators, box-shaped refrigerators that do not require fuel or batteries, have helped increase youth vaccination in the poorest rural provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 50% over the following year, according to the global alliance for Gavi vaccines.
This has helped reduce child mortality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a portion of what it was two decades ago. More than 18 million young people were vaccinated last year against a deadly outbreak of measles, which has slowed dramatically in recent weeks.
First, the world is looking to launch a much larger vaccination crusade once COVID-19 vaccines become available.
Providing millions of vaccines in Africa, an expanding continent with fragile fitness systems and a lack of electricity, will be an overwhelming task.
And it’s not clear that existing out-of-network refrigerators can keep vaccines bloodless enough to help.
Refrigeration is for the distribution of vaccines.
Most vaccines require cooling to between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius (35-46 degrees Fahrenheit), however, nearly some of the progressive COVID-19 primary candidate vaccines will require a bloodless chamber below 80 degrees Celsius, according to the researchers.
In addition, bloodless chain distribution for COVID-19 vaccines will require perfectly low temperatures from brands to airports and remote rural villages.
Despite the progress that millions of lives have been in keeping vaccines bloodless in recent years, most African countries still have huge gaps in these networks.
“This is the biggest logistical challenge facing the world, and it is a huge challenge for sub-Saharan African countries with a giant rural population,” said Toby Peters, a professor specializing in food and drug cooling systems at the British University. Birmingham. .
When William Clemmer, a physician at the nonprofit IMA World Health, arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1990s, many gymnasiums used obsolete kerosene refrigerators that damaged, damaged or destroyed vaccines.
First-generation solar coolers were an improvement, but required garage batteries that stopped working after two or 3 years and were difficult to replace.
Direct-operated solar coolers replaced it about ten years ago.
Costing between $3,500 and $9,000, they are connected to photovoltaic solar panels, which supply thermal energy to freeze a thick layer of water, keeping the ice bag indoors for several days, regardless of the weather.
In 2016, 16% of rural gymnasiums in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had refrigerators in operation, according to Gavi.
Today, a maximum of 80% is mostly equipped with direct drive solar units. They have allowed 24,000 immunization sessions per month in the nine poorest provinces in the following year, an increase of 50% compared to 2018.
“They have necessarily revolutionized vaccine management for young people in sub-Saharan Africa,” Clemmer said.
Karan Sagar, a physician who leads the fitness systems and immunization team at Gavi, attributes a 25% increase in immunization rates for young people in Africa over the past decade to out-of-network equipment.
Since 2017, a $250 million effort led through Gavi has delivered more than 15,300 direct-operated solar coolers to 3 dozen African countries, adding approximately 3,400 games in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 5,400 in Nigeria.
Sagar said 87% of young people in these African countries won the first dose of a vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and whoath cough last year.
“This is a testament to the ability of home chains to succeed even in the world’s most remote communities,” he said.
It is not just the extremely cold temperatures for COVID-19 vaccines that Africa would possibly have to face.
Solar coolers are just the newest of the many steps needed to temporarily and safely move vaccines from centralized production sites, whether inside or outside Africa, to urban and rural destinations across the continent.
At each and every step of the way — planes, warehouses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, canoes, and even drones — vaccines will have to be kept at very intense express temperatures, as will other perishable products, and much higher volumes will be needed.
While immunization campaigns for years of training generally around 115 million babies a year worldwide, the COVID-19 vaccine will succeed in up to 750 million others in Africa in Africa, according to fitness experts.
To prepare for this challenge, Peters, an expert in bloodless chains, is leading a government-supported effort to assess Africa’s wishes in delivering a imaginable COVID-19 vaccine, in collaboration with educational, advertising and non-profit partners.
They are learning from Rwanda, a Central and Eastern African country that has made great progress in recent years in effective and climate-friendly bloodless chains for food and vaccine delivery.
Its formula operates around a warehouse that serves as a cooling center for vaccines that are distributed to district hospitals, gyms and remote rural gym stations, of which dozens use solar refrigerators.
Vaccines are successful in more than 95% of the population, according to the World Health Organization. But replicating Rwanda’s good fortune will be a formidable task. “Rwanda is small, countries like Nigeria are much harder,” Peters said.
Bloodless food chains where the largest-scale advertising capacity is most established will be those of the necessary style, he added.
“We know how to ship millions of tons of new food from small farms in Africa to consumer refrigerators in Europe,” Peters said. “We want to use this experience and move it to vaccines. “
But that is before considering the possible desires for ultracooling that COVID-19 vaccines would possibly require, that direct-operated solar coolers are not supplied to handle.
Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have reveled firsthand with vaccines requiring an ultra-cold garage in the form of a new vaccine that helped end the Ebola epidemic last summer.
“Superthermal” refrigerators, filled with blocks of artificial alcohol ice, kept the vaccine at minus 60-80 degrees Celsius for 6. 5 days, but the amounts in question were a small component of what would be needed for an effective COVID-19 vaccine.
“Few African economies have an ultra-cold chain,” Sagar said.
Peters hopes COVID-19 vaccines will only require the bloodless room at 2-8 degrees C, which direct-operated solar coolers can supply in rural gyms.
“If classic bloodless chains go underneath that, we have a huge new challenge,” he said.
(Report via Peyton Fleming; edited through Megan Rowling. Please mention the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Thomson Reuters’ charitable arm, which covers the lives of others around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news. trustArrayorg/climate)