Kenyan startup DropAccess, founded in 2018 by electrical engineers Norah Magero and James Mulatya, has developed a special solution for cooling and transporting vaccines and medicines: a portable solar refrigerator called the “VacciBox”. With this product, DropAccess has been participating in Startup|Energy‘s Accelerator Program as a Fellow since 2021.

Part of the support is a pilot project: The Solar Energy Foundation Kenya ordered five mobile solar refrigerators to be installed by DropAccess in health stations. Gathu Kirubi, head of the Kenya Solar Energy Foundation reports on his recent visit to the health station in Kiloh (Kajiado County):

“I can vividly recall the date and time when this VacciBox fridge was delivered and installed in this clinic in September, 2022,” an excited Victor Kiprotich remarks as he warmly welcomes us into Kiloh Dispensary, a typical off-grid health clinic in rural Kenya. Located about 150km South West of Nairobi, the journey to this remote clinic is not for the faint-hearted; it takes over three hours from Nairobi, navigating through the rush green savanah grasslands on extremely rough off-road terrain.

Commissioned in February 2016, the Kiloh Dispensary serves a Masai community population of nearly 3000 sparsely scattered across a 15km radius from where the dispensary is located. “The diseases we commonly treat here include malaria, upper-respiratory infections like pneumonia and diarrhea,” explains Victor, the nurse in charge of the dispensary since 2019. And it’s not surprising to find these diseases in the area – for starters, malaria is a tropical disease highly prevalent in Africa.

“But what are the causes of pneumonia and diarrhea?” We curiously inquire from Victor. “Oh, the reasons are obvious. Pneumonia is due to indoor air pollution caused by use of traditional firewood in poorly ventilated Maasai houses, called Manyattas.” Victor explains and he continues: “Lacking toilets, Maasai community resort to open defecation in the bushes to answer the call of nature. The poor hygienic conditions are exacerbated by extremely limited supply of water, of which the primary source is rain-water harvesting in a region that can go for 2-3 years without adequate rains”, concludes Victor.

Against this background, we ask Victor, “what difference has the VacciBox fridge made to this Maasai community?” The first major impact is storage of vaccines as Victor elaborates further: “Since we are not connected to grid electricity, our only storage for medicines was a gas-powered refrigerator.” Apart from the high cost (Usd30/month), supply of gas is highly unreliable particularly in remote clinics like Kiloh. Thus, it was not unusual to go without gas for several weeks resulting in major losses of medicines and serious disruptions in medical services. “The solar-powered VacciBox solved medicine storage problem completely!” Victor remarks excitedly. Indeed, when Victor starts talking about the VacciBox, it’s very hard to stop him.

The second major impact of the VacciBox fridge has been in promoting increased access to timely and quality vaccination for children and adults. No doubt, solar power is a crucial innovation for powering the fridge. Yet in these remote villages, portability is an even more critical design feature. “Once or twice a week, we carry a fully-stocked VacciBox to the far-flung villages like Nguseron, 15kms away. We then camp there from dawn to dusk administering vaccines and treatments to children, expectant mothers and elderly people who, for one reason or another, cannot make to visit the dispensary.

Photo: DropAccess

Thanks to both the reliability and portability of the VacciBox, Victor is now able to extend services to five primary schools within his catchment, namely Kiloh, Endikiri, Kalembwani, Lesoit and Olooserian with a combined population of over 1500 pupils. And the results for this aggressive outreach vaccination campaigns are impressive – over 60 children immunized per month and nearly 800 people vaccinated against Covid 19. The VacciBox has also enabled rapid and reliable response to emergencies cases such as treatment against rabies commonly caused by bites by wild dogs and hyenas, with boys and men being the most vulnerable to frequent attacks as they grace their livestock in the forests and in the open savanah grasslands.

Supporting maternal deliveries is the third major impact of VacciBox fridge at Kiloh as Victor explains; “Before we got the VacciBox, it was very difficult to convince the mothers to come for delivery services at the dispensary because we lacked reliable supply of vital medicines and vaccines. The good news is that, thanks to the VacciBox, this negative mindset on unreliability has now changed. Our regular out-reach vaccinations campaigns in the villages using the VacciBox has created the much-needed confidence on the reliability of our services. As a matter of fact, not only do we support at least 5 deliveries per month at this dispensary we get calls to attend to emergencies cases relating to deliveries at homes,” Victor proudly concludes the discussion.