Measurement and prediction of SMILE vaccine carrier’s behaviour during typical usage

According to the WHO, currently 19 million children still lack basic vaccinations. Each year, two to three million children die of a vaccine-preventable disease. A major reason for this is that vaccines are damaged by fluctuations in temperature. That is, they become too hot or too cold. Frequently, outreach vaccine delivery journeys can take up to seven days in hard-to-reach areas but current vaccine carriers can only maintain the required temperature for less than 40 hours even when they are left unopened. Currently, up to 85% of the vaccines are spoiled due to freezing or overheating before they reach their destinations.In addition to the inadequate vaccine carriers used in the field, errors made by trained healthworkers during immunisation and outbreak campaigns further accelerate the vaccine spoilage. For example, using an insufficient number of icepacks leads to the vaccine temperature not being maintained. Other factors that accelerate spoilage include leaving the carrier lid open throughout the immunisation session, repeatedly opening the carrier and placing usable vials on the floor. This massively reduces the effective storage lifetime of the carrier when in use.Ideabatic, a UK social enterprise has developed a smart vaccine carrier called SMILE to solve these problems. SMILE is fail-safe during transport and vaccination campaigns. SMILE keeps vaccines in the required temperature range 2°C to 8°C for three to five days with a bespoke SMILE icepack. SMILE has a self-closing door and an air-locking mechanism to minimise heat transfer even when the door is opened repeatedly. SMILE is designed to be intuitive to use to minimise training costs. SMILE can easily be transported by foot, bike, donkey, boat or drone with a dedicated backpack. SMILE can also be used to store other temperature-sensitive products.The UK is a longstanding supporter and is the largest donor to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. The UK has committed £200 million each year to GAVI from 2016 to 2020 and pledged an additional £1 billion in 2015\.The purpose of this project is to measure how repeatedly opening the door affects the icepack temperature and efficiency of SMILE. This information will help model the vaccine temperature during typical use cases. These results will help understand how effective SMILE's mechanisms are and how vaccine spoilage is reduced. The ultimate goal is reach out to more children who lack access to basic vaccinations and contribute to the UK's vaccination aid program.