What it takes to vaccinate the world

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2020

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With Covid-19 vaccinations preparing to roll out, how do we make sure everyone gets it? John Johnson, a vaccine programme co-ordinator for Doctors without Borders, outlines just how much is involved in getting vaccines, by truck, motorbike and even foot, to every town and village in the developing world. The Covid-19 vaccine, like others, needs to be transported below a certain temperature, adding an extra layer of complexity, as Toby Peters from the University of Birmingham explains. But David Elliot, of Dulas Solar, says technology like their solar-powered refrigerators can help solve the problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Rebecca Weintraub, Faculty Director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University, is enthusiastic that the world’s institutions can come together to co-ordinate the task.

Producers: Frey Lindsay and Joshua Thorpe.

(Picture: A Malaria vaccine implementation pilot programme in Malawi, April 2019. Image credit: AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Today, as COVID vaccines prepare to roll out, some of the challenges of getting a jab in Africa.
0:11.9	You have to train vaccination teams, you have to set up vaccination sites, import vaccines, transport them to the region, and then get them to the sites by motorbike or by four by four.
0:21.9	Sometimes you even have to take them by canoe.
0:23.4	Well, however it's delivered, will vaccines truly be allocated for the benefit of the poor world?
0:29.6	I have confidence in the institutional partners and the nation states that have sat together to say
0:35.3	we will prepare nations for the allocation and
0:38.7	distribution of the vaccine. Vaccine equality. That's today's Business Daily from the BBC.
0:53.3	The going is pretty tough.
0:55.0	It's very narrow trails through forest, very slippery.
0:59.1	I think the area is covered by about three different rebel groups.
1:02.0	We have 50 porters carrying vaccination kits, cool boxes.
1:06.4	The teams are split into groups of six people.
1:09.0	The words there of one photo journalist, Phil Moore,
1:12.6	accompanying a recent vaccination drive in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
1:17.7	Turnout wasn't huge today.
1:19.5	Again, a problem of spreading the message
1:21.7	and also the fact that there is conflict between two of the villages,
1:25.6	which means that residents of one village cannot come to the other.
1:29.4	Yes, this is about as tough an environment as it gets for running things like a vaccination program.
1:36.1	Medesinsins-on-Frontierre, the charity in question, is often at the forefront.
1:40.5	John Johnson coordinated an Ebola vaccination program back in 2019, as well as trying to
1:46.6	handle one of the world's worst measles outbreaks at the same time in the region.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.