Transportation and Supply Chain

George Barbastathis of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in the U.S. will lead a team to develop Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that can be deployed by health care workers via cell phones to swiftly transport vaccines to rural locations and alleviate last-mile delivery problems and improve cost, quality, and coverage of vaccine supplies.

Alain Labrique of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S. will develop and field test in rural Bangladesh a cloud-based mobile phone system that will allow for universal access to vaccination records, send vaccine reminders and messaging, and provide incentives to parents and health care workers via a phone application. This new strategy could increase the reach, coverage, and public acceptance of immunization.

Nancy Muller from PATH in the U.S. will develop approaches to prevent freezing and thereby destruction of vaccines during cold chain transport. Maintaining vaccines below 8°C while preventing freezing is particularly challenging during their transport in developing countries. In Phase I they designed low-cost liners containing engineered phase change materials that fit existing vaccine carriers and provide a thermal buffer between the vaccines and standard ice-packs.

Claire Dillavou of the University of California, Los Angeles in the U.S. will develop compostable vaccine packaging to diminish the environmental impact of residual debris from mass vaccination campaigns in developing countries lacking adequate disposal infrastructure.

Lauren Franzel of PATH in the U.S. will explore the use of bar code technology to improve vaccine supply and logistics management as well as strategic forecasting of vaccine supply and demand. Real-time data could ensure allocation of doses to where they are needed most, reduce wastage and inventory holding costs, and enhance capacity for strategic matching of vaccine supply and demand at a global level.

Jonathan Colton of Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S., with John Lloyd, Andrew Garnett and Steve McCarney, will solicit proposals from industry to create a full set of requirements and engineering specifications for the development of a new "net zero energy" warehouse and distribution system for vaccines and drugs in developing countries.

Roger Miller and colleagues at the Logistics Management Institute in the U.S. propose to develop a software-based prototype modeling tool that allows vaccine program managers to lower total delivered costs by analyzing all of the clinical and logistical factors that determine the cost per viable vaccine dose administered. The prototype could be developed as a fully deployable software product with associated training, reporting, and analysis capability.

Loriana Dembele of Eau et Vie Ji-Duma in Mali proposes to develop new architectural and construction guidelines for vaccine storage rooms in hot climates that incorporate passive solar thermal technologies to keep vaccines at recommended temperatures. The team will construct and test prototype storage facilities to determine new standards that prevent vaccine spoilage, reduce operating costs, and improve refrigeration capabilities.