Delivery of solar powered refrigerators to improve vaccine coverage in Sierra Leone
An effort to take vaccines closer to communities
Kambia, Sierra Leone - Wednesday mornings are busy at Senthani Peripheral Health Unit in Kambia. On this day, the two-roomed health facility, which is the pivot for health services delivery for this rural community of more than 3 000 people, is dedicated to the immunisation of children against common childhood illnesses.
As caregivers begin flocking in with babies saddled on their backs, they meet with nurse Aminata Kamara as she disembarks from a motorcycle she hired to go and fetch the vaccines from Kambia District Hospital. This journey to the district hospital has become necessary since the refrigerator at Senthani Health Unit broke down after ten years of regular use.
"The journey to the District Hospital is about 10km. I have no option but to make this trip since the refrigerator we had at this facility is now faulty," says nurse Aminata as she clutches a vaccine carrier bearing 11 different vaccines to begin the work she is dedicated to do.
"It has been a tiring exercise travelling to the District Hospital to collect vaccines, but it is the only way we could ensure that we protect children in the village from preventable diseases. I am glad that this hustle will soon be a thing of the past as we have recently received a new solar powered refrigerator for the health centre,” says an elated Aminata, as she points to the brand-new refrigerator.
Sierra Leone has one of the worst under-five mortality rates in the world with 108 per 1,000 live births according to the UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (2021). The latest Demographic and Health Survey (2019) also indicates that only 56 per cent of children 12-23 months are fully immunised against childhood diseases such as measles, polio, yellow fever, tuberculosis, and rotavirus.
Across Sierra Leone, the limitations of fully functioning Cold Chain Equipment pose a threat to the immunisation programme and compromises the potency of the vaccines. The loss of potency in a vaccine is permanent, irreversible and will not meet the need to protect children from preventable diseases. It has therefore been a welcome move that progress has been made to strengthen the cold chain system of the country’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).
Throughout 2021, UNICEF with support from GAVI, USAID and JICA procured and delivered 430 solar powered refrigerators to primary health care facilities, 22 large solar refrigerators in all district vaccine stores, 1 ultra-cold-chain freezer and 1 Walk-In-Cold Room at central level. These refrigerators are an important contribution to health facilities such as Senthani, that have operated for a long time without adequate cold chain equipment.
The refrigerators procured for health facilities, each with a storage capacity of 36 litres will provide adequate storage for essential life-saving vaccines, enhance the productivity and efficiency of health workers, and improve equitable access to health care services among under-five children in hard-to-reach communities.
The data collected and released in 2020 by the WHO, UNICEF, Gavi and the Sabin Vaccine Institute, indicate that the provision of routine immunisation services has been substantially hindered as health delivery system is overstretched due to the COVID-19 response.
The delivery of the refrigerators and other cold chain equipment such as vaccine carriers has therefore been a timely intervention to ensure continued delivery of immunisation services to children to protect them from recent outbreaks of preventable diseases such as polio and measles.
“A sustainable immunisation programme, both for routine immunisation and for COVID-19 vaccine deployment, is dependent upon the availability of a standard cold chain system for effective vaccine management,” said Yuki Suehiro, UNICEF Sierra Leone Chief of Health and Nutrition.
Once the new refrigerator is installed, nurse Aminata will not only be saved from making the weekly ride to the district hospital, but she will be able to welcome babies for immunisation on any day of the week.
After warmly greeting the mothers and caregivers, and sharing general health tips and messages with them, nurse Aminata begins attending to the 30 children, who are due for vaccination this Wednesday.
