Cambridge Independent: How Cambridge startup Ideabatic is solving the last-mile vaccine delivery challenge in the developing world

 

Only one in four people in Africa has received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine – and only one in five on the continent is fully vaccinated against the virus. Cambridge humanitarian startup Ideabatic has found that in some parts of remote Nigeria and Madagascar the spoilage rate can reach 100 per cent, making the whole endeavour a complete waste, the article says.

Kitty Liao, former student of Cambridge Judge Business School (PGDE 2016) and founder of Ideabatic, is travelling to Cameroon in August with the company’s innovative portable vaccine carrier, SMILE, which promises to put an end to the problem.

“I took part in a humanitarian hackathon at CERN where I realised there is a big problem. According to the WHO, pre-COVID-19, two to three million children died each year of a vaccine-preventable disease and 20 million still lack basic vaccinations,” Kitty says.

Read the full article [cambridgeindependent.co.uk]