by Shea Vincent, Senior Marketing Director at Stirling Ultracold
With the COVID-19 Omicron variant spreading rapidly across the world, logistics challenges continue to be a barrier to global vaccination, from first-mile to last-mile distribution. While developed nations like the United Arab Emirates and Portugal are well under way of vaccinating their entire populations, transportation and infrastructure challenges in less developed regions continue standing in the way of vaccination rate improvements. In fact, nearly 60% of people in advanced economies are fully vaccinated, while a staggering 96% of people in low-income countries remain completely unvaccinated.
As vaccination barriers in these regions persist, COVID-19 will only continue to spread, giving way to additional mutations. Fortunately, vaccine inequity can be solved through the implementation of flexible cold storage infrastructure in remote regions. While most flexible cold storage solutions often come with a premium price tag, collaborations among solutions providers and non-profit organizations enable donations and contributions to be delivered to nations in need. BioLife Solutions and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) recently announced a partnership that will help extend lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines to people in these territories.
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