Cold supply chain challenge a big hurdle for equitable Covid-19 vaccination

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are a great start that should be celebrated, but they rely on a complicated supply chain of freezers and temperature-controlled shipping methods

There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many rural hospitals can’t afford ultralow-temperature freezers or might not have reliable electricity, for example – present challenges. However, with government will and resources, these could be overcome.

That is not true for much of the rest of the world.

One of us, Tim Ford, is a global health researcher who has done a lot of international work on water and health where the cold supply chain cannot go, most recently in rural Haiti. The other, Charles