Not on A-1: How UNICEF Keeps Vaccines Cold

One of the big barriers to fighting childhood diseases like polio, measles and other vaccine preventable illnesses is the simple logistical challenge of keeping vaccines cold. In global heath parlance this is call the “cold-storage-chain.” It often involves a herculean effort by logisticians with groups like UNICEF to make sure that the vaccine stays refrigerated from the moment it is manufactured in say, India or South Korea to the moment it is injected into a child’s arm in a far away rural outpost in the middle of a poor country.

The farther away the vaccine is from a reliable electricity supply, the more difficult this becomes. Faced with these challenges, groups have come up with rather creative ways to make sure that life saving vaccines stay cold.

Here’s a good example of that in action: