Flying malaria vaccines reach isolated Nigerian communities
Drone deliveries have made it possible to get malaria vaccines to 20,000 children – and counting – in otherwise tough-to-reach settlements across Bayelsa state.
Seven-month-old Samara Akuma’s malaria vaccine dropped into his life from the heavens. Literally.
Samara lives with his mother, Hope PraiseGod, 25, in the riverine community of Opume, in Ogbia Local Government Area, part of Nigeria’s Bayelsa State. Opume is one of many remote communities in Bayelsa that are considered hard-to-reach by the health system, demanding hours of rough travel by boat or road.
So far, this initiative has helped to reach 20,000 people with the first dose of the malaria vaccine in the state.
– Chinedu Amah, Zipline
As a consequence, the area contends with frequent vaccine stock-outs, and missed immunisations. “This put vulnerable populations, particularly children and pregnant women, at risk,” said Dr Appah Williams, Executive Secretary of the Bayelsa State Primary Health Care Board.
Luckily for Samara and the 92 other infants vaccinated against malaria in Opume and neighbouring Emakalakala and Akipelai since Nigeria’s malaria programme began late last year, surface travel is no longer the only option for the delivery of life-saving vaccines in Bayelsa. These doses arrived by drone.
