Vanuatu is a small island in the remote South Pacific where about 20 percent of the country’s children miss out on crucial vaccines. Given that Vanuatu is made of 80 remote, mountainous islands with limited road access, it’s very difficult to transport medicine there, especially vaccine\ that needs to be kept at controlled temperatures. Therefore, a drone was used for the first time to transport vaccines 24 miles to a location in Western Vanuatu where a nurse and some children were waiting.

Nurse Miriam Nampil, who administered the vaccines to the children, explained: “It’s extremely hard to carry ice boxes to keep the vaccines cool while walking across rivers, mountains, through the rain, or across rocky ledges. I’ve relied on boats, which often get cancelled due to bad weather. As the journey is often long and difficult, I can only go there once a month to vaccinate children. But now, with these drones, we can hope to reach many more children in the remotest areas of the island.”

The vaccines were carried in Styrofoam boxes with ice-packs and a temperature device that sent an alarm if the temperature falls outside of the specific requirements. The drone experiment involving the transport of medicine was a first of its kind, and was done using a private company contracted by the Government of Vanuatu. The commercial drone company was selected through a bidding process. The head of UNICEF, Henrietta H. Fore, expressed excitement about the “enormous potential” of this vaccine delivery process.