New vaccine storage facility to support immunisation programmes

A new cold storage facility for vaccines was opened at the main hospital in Monrovia on Friday as part of efforts to revitalise health services across war-ravaged Liberia. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the new cold store at John F Kennedy hospital could hold up to three million doses of assorted vaccines. UNICEF said it would allow existing freezers at the hospital to be relocated in the interior of the country to regional clinics that are often cut off when roads become impassible during the rainy season. “With the commissioning today of the new store, we have begun the important process of decentralising the cold chain system with the relocation of the existing freezers to six regional centres in the country," said Angela Kearney, UNICEF’s country representative to Liberia. “This will move vaccines closest to the target beneficiaries and will limit the need for local health workers and authorities to come all the way to Monrovia for the vaccines, especially during the rainy season when most roads in the country are impassable,” she explained. UNICEF is training four Ministry of Health technicians to manage the system, which should have a lifespan of 20 years if properly maintained. Basic health care facilities are practically non-existent in battered Liberia. Fourteen years of almost continuous civil war has left the nation’s infrastructure and basic services in tatters. Kearney appealed for people to return cold boxes and vaccine carrying bags that were looted from hospitals during fighting in Monrovia last year. Many of these containers are now being used by street vendors in downtown Monrovia to keep soft drinks chilled. Liberia is currently grappling with an outbreak of Yellow Fever. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that 33 suspected cases had been reported so far in five of Liberia’s 15 counties and eight of these people had died. WHO, UNICEF and several medical NGOs operating in Liberia began a mass immunization campaign against Yellow Fever, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, on 26 February which aims to reach 522,000 people.