Optimising the Vaccine Cold-Chain for Resilient Immunisation in Africa

An estimated 25–30 percent of vaccines are lost in sub-Saharan Africa due to temperature excursions beyond their specified range for efficacy, often as a result of unreliable power supply, and limited cold-chain monitoring that leads to uncertain compliance with storage requirements¹,². Maintaining vaccine potency from production to administration is one of the most pressing challenges in achieving full immunisation coverage across the continent.

In Rwanda, the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain (ACES), working with the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Board (RAB), and the University of Birmingham (UoB), is pioneering climate-smart and data-driven approaches to optimise vaccine cold-chain performance and strengthen One Health (combined human, animal and environmental health) resilience³.

From Challenge to Innovation

Rwanda’s vaccine delivery network operates with high energy costs and often in difficult rural terrain. To address the former, through the Clean Cooling Initiative, ACES and partners are piloting solar-powered, sensor-equipped refrigeration units that provide real-time temperature data and predictive maintenance alerts to the teams responsible for national vaccine distribution³. These systems allow failures to be prevented before they occur and have the added benefit of extending equipment life cycles.

To tackle the terrain challenge, the VaccAir model-developed collaboratively by UoB, ACES, RBC, and Zipline, integrates drone-based vaccine transport with temperature-controlled packaging to deliver vaccines on demand. Early field results of this innovative approach to distribution indicate a reduction in product loss and improved on-time delivery under Rwanda’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI)⁶.

Integrating One Health in Vaccine Management

Beyond improving human health and reducing environmental impact, optimising cold-chain infrastructure also supports the animal health component of Rwanda’s One Health vision. Working with RAB, ACES is aligning veterinary vaccine logistics for zoonotic diseases, such as Rift Valley Fever and Brucellosis, with human vaccine systems. Shared energy infrastructure and synchronised transport routes reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower incurred costs and improve access across sectors⁴,⁵.

Harmonising the human and animal vaccine cold-chains creates an integrated surveillance platform for zoonotic outbreaks, advancing the continental call by the African Union’s Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) for unified vaccine supply systems that underpin the continent’s health-security agenda⁴.

Research, Financing, and Scale-Up

The collaboration among ACES, RBC, RAB, and UoB is research-led, translating scientific innovation into practice³,⁷. Scaling these solutions will require multi-partner financing and policy integration. Globally, partnerships with GAVI, UNICEF, WHO, and Africa CDC are enabling the embedding of digital cold-chain monitoring tools and renewable-energy infrastructure into national immunisation information systems¹,⁴.

In conclusion, optimising Africa’s vaccine cold-chain is key to reducing product loss, improving immunisation programme coverage, and strengthening pandemic preparedness. Rwanda’s model, through the leadership of ACES, RBC, RAB, and UoB, demonstrates how Clean Cooling, predictive analytics, and One Health integration can transform vaccine delivery for both people and animals. As Africa invests in sustainable vaccine infrastructure, initiatives such as VaccAir offer a blueprint for resilient, low-carbon and efficient immunisation systems.

The Vaccine Symposium

Want to engage with groundbreaking research on vaccine science and state-of-the-art point-of-care diagnostics? Interested in collaborating with international experts in vaccine research and cold-chain optimisation? Join us in Kigali on 17th – 19th November for our Vaccine Symposium. This symposium aligns with the Clean Cooling Network's commitment to advancing inclusive, environmentally sustainable solutions in global health and science.