Luis Alves Nogueira, 74, left, receives a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from a healthcare worker, in the Pupuri community along the Purus River, in the Labrea municipality, Amazonas state, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. | AP
Around the world, it is taking extra effort and ingenuity to ensure the vaccine gets to remote locations. That means shipping it by boat to islands, by snowmobile to Alaska villages and via complex waterways through the Amazon in Brazil.
PORTLAND, Maine — After enduring 40-knot winds and freezing sea spray, jostled health care providers arrived wet and cold on two Maine islands in the North Atlantic late last month to conduct coronavirus vaccinations.
As they came ashore on Little Cranberry Island, population 65, residents danced with excitement.
“It’s a historic day for the island,” said Kaitlyn Miller, who joined a friend in belting out “I’m not giving away my shot!” from the Broadway show Hamilton when the crew arrived.
Around the world, it is taking extra effort and ingenuity to ensure the vaccine gets to remote locations. That means shipping it by boat to islands, by snowmobile to Alaska villages and via complex waterways through the Amazon in Brazil. Before it’s over, drones, motorcycles, elephants, horses and camels will have been used to deliver it to the world’s far corners, said Robin Nandy, chief of immunization for UNICEF.
“This is unprecedented in that we’re trying to deliver a new vaccine to every country in the world in the same calendar year,” he said.
Although the vaccination rollout has been choppy in much of the world and some places are still waiting for their first doses, there’s an urgent push to inoculate people in hard-to-reach places that may not have had COVID-19 outbreaks but also may not be well equipped to deal with them if they do.
“It’s a race against the clock,” said Sharon Daley, medical director of the Maine Seacoast Mission, which is providing shots on seven islands off the Maine coast.
And though coronavirus vaccinations can present unique challenges, including adequate refrigeration, health care providers are fortunate to have an infrastructure in place through the systems they use to conduct childhood vaccinations for measles and other diseases, Nandy said.
In the rough and roadless terrain of southwestern Alaska, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. chartered planes and used snowmobiles this winter to deliver the vaccine to nearly four dozen villages spread out over an area the size of Oregon.
The vaccination effort there began in December, when temperatures still hovered around minus 20 or minus 30 Fahrenheit and workers had to ensure the vaccine didn’t freeze in the syringes’ needles. Despite the challenges, the health corporation delivered thousands of doses to 47 villages in a month. In one village, residents were anguished after COVID-19 killed one person and sickened two others, including the local health worker.
“People were just really desperate to get vaccinated there, and it was pretty emotional to just kind of be able to bring something to them, to protect them,” said Dr. Ellen Hodges, the …read more
Source:: Chicago Sun Times
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