The first cold chain vaccination storage system

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In 1974, Ghana pioneered a new system which would help in the roll-out of the immunisation of serious diseases across Africa and the rest of the world. The World Health Organisation chose the country to trial its cold chain system, to help keep vaccines for often deadly diseases refrigerated. It would later evolve into the storage systems used to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Justice Baidoo meets Patience Azuma, who was one of the first children to benefit from the Enhanced Immunisation Programme in the 1970s and Dr Kofi Ahmed later a chief medical officer, who helped in the original cold storage system roll out.

A Made in Manchester Production for BBC World Service.

(Photo: A man being vaccinated in Ghana. Credit: Junior Asiama / 500px)

Transcript

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0:00.0	He is Brian Cox.
0:02.8	Hello.
0:03.3	And he understands science.
0:05.3	I'm Robin Ince and I don't understand it quite so much.
0:09.0	Could it tell us something about the nature of matter?
0:11.3	Nope.
0:12.0	Okay, good.
0:14.2	Together we'll be joined by a collection of experts and non-expert guests.
0:18.6	What's going on?
0:19.8	Don't worry.
0:21.7	Taking a look at some of the most wonderful things
0:24.4	in the scientific world.
0:25.9	Science with Funny Bits, The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Thank you for downloading the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Justice Bedou.
0:44.6	Today I'm taking you back to 1974
0:48.8	and the launch of a revolutionary new method
0:51.5	for transporting medicines which paved the way for millions around the world to be vaccinated against previously deadly diseases.
1:01.0	I've been speaking to two people involved in the world first coal chain vaccination
1:06.4	storage system here in Ghana.
1:09.0	I feel great about it that our country was chosen, it was tested in our cold rooms to see how viable
1:17.5	or effective the vaccines would last. We really had a great opportunity. The world was all looking at us.
1:26.3	Patience Azuma, born in the town of Tema, is very conscious of her place in history.
1:33.2	I feel that we were a privileged group because we had the opportunity to be
	...

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