GAMPELA, Burkina Faso (AP)- The world's most promising coronavirus vaccine need nonstop sterile refrigeration to work. However, nearly 3 billion people live in places without temperature-controlled storage. The result of this, is of course, the world's poorest people will be the last to come out of the pandemic. Even in the world's richest countries will have a hard time maintaining the correct temperatures for vaccines.

A tiny clinic in Burkina Faso went nearly a year without a working refrigerator is just one example of how millions of people could be in places without access to the vaccine. UNICEF began laying groundwork to maintain their PPE program months ago and will begin to work on this issue. Once the vaccine leaves a factory, the issues begin. Cargo ships are too slow to maintain shelf life and flying vaccines at low temperatures is a huge cost. 15,000 cargo flights would be needed in order to fully vaccinate the world.

UNICEF is prepared to have 520 million syringes pre-positioned and have refrigeration needs mapped out by the end of the year in order to ensure when a vaccine does come out, they are able to get them out immediately.

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