Electricity-Free Cold Chain for Vaccine Delivery

Around 9M children do not get vaccinated in India every year and are therefore vulnerable to diseases like tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, and etc. Not being vaccinated is more common in the rural areas of India, where 70% of the population resides. This is because there is scarce or zero provision of electricity, due to which equipment (refrigerators) required to keep the vaccines cool cannot be run. Vaccines are required to always be stored in low temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees C. Currently, refrigerators (ice lined refrigerators) are used that can maintain the low temperatures the entire day with 8 hours of electricity supply. However, this is still not enough to meet all the rural conditions. Vaccines often have to be consumed on delivery and cannot reach or be stored in rural areas which experience voltage fluctuations, denying vaccination to many. We have developed an inexpensive technology that can be added and attached to the current equipment (Ice lined refrigerators and vaccine carriers) and increase the time of cooling without electricity. When the current refrigerators used cannot maintain the temperatures any longer, a lever has to be pushed that would activate our system and extend the cooling time by a minimum of 10 hours. Our system does not need electricity. Instead, it uses mechanical energy to produce cooling capacity. This would significantly increase the reach and distribution of vaccines to areas with no or fluctuating electricity supply.