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.

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.

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.