e Health Centres are providing a solution that connects doctors to their patients in remote locations via nurses, thus lowering the cost of consultation and transportation. This project is currently in pilot phase.
Econet Vaccine Storage Centres
In many developing countries, rural communities bear the brunt of their nations’ limited infrastructure and the prevalence of the top 5 Child Killer diseases namely Measles, Polio, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough and Tetanus. The lack of efficient power supply is a key hurdle to efforts to provide efficient primary healthcare to marginalised communities.
In Africa, temperatures often soar above 30 degrees Celsius, well above the cold chain range of between two and eight degrees, the optimum temperature at which vaccines and other medicines should be kept to remain effective. Anything higher than that denatures the medicines and renders them useless, or even harmful.
With most rural hospitals facing frequent power outages, maintaining the cold chain is a real challenge. As a result, many young lives hang by a thread. However, thanks to the efforts of a global telecommunications company Econet Wireless, the future looks much brighter for these communities.
Having realised that their Base Station infrastructure generates excess power, Econet Wireless is turning this into an opportunity to empower the communities they serves. Through the “Energize the Chain” initiative, Econet Wireless donates hi-tech vaccine refrigeration units to rural hospitals.
These Vaccine refrigerated units are specially designed for vaccine storage as they have a 10 day holdover period in which they can maintain the low temperatures even if there is no source of power, saving the Ministry of Health movements in collecting vaccines from central stores when electricity is not available.
In the event of power outage, the base station’s backup generator produces excess power, which is harnessed and used to maintain the cold chain. The refrigeration units are powered by this excess energy even in the event that the generator or back up batteries power runs out. The refrigerated unit can go up to 10 days without any form of power, while still maintaining the required temperatures.
Econet Wireless provides the technology to monitor the units via the internet, and provides formal training to hospital staff enabling them to use the equipment for the full benefit of their communities.
Through the “Energize the Chain” initiative, Econet Wireless is empowering communities to combat the top 5 child killer diseases namely Measles, Polio, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough and Tetanus, thereby helping to secure Africa’s future generations.
To this end, Econet Wireless has and continues to deploy Base Stations in most rural communities, as fulfillment of its mandate to provide telecommunications to the people of the countries that it serves.
