The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a USD10 million grant under its Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility for a project to help the Maldives upgrade storage facilities and strengthen the distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccines.
In a press release, ADB Health Specialist for South Asia Dai-Ling Chen said the Maldives has attained early success with its COVID-19 vaccination programme in 2021 and that support from ADB aims to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the ongoing booster and pediatric COVID-19 vaccination as well as routine immunisation. He added that the project will fill gaps in the vaccination system by enhancing vaccine cold storage, delivery, monitoring, and management capacity of the country.
ADB stated the project will construct a central cold storage facility in Hulhumale’ that is climate-resilient and powered by renewable energy, replacing the temporary facility in Male’ City. It comes with adequate space to properly store vaccines, medical supplies, and laboratory equipment. There will be dedicated areas for repairing and maintaining cold chain equipment, managing vaccine waste, and hosting a backup server for national immunisation data.
To improve the distribution of vaccines and medical goods across the Maldives, the project will provide seven speed boats, one each for the regions and one for the Greater Male’ Region, two refrigerated trucks, and two vans for immunisation services in Male’. ADB said its financing will promote the digitalisation of vaccine information management by providing equipment to set up a national health data centre and mobile devices for public health staff collecting data at all health centres. It will help link the national health networks to all islands, atolls, and Male’.
The project will help build the human resource capacity of the EPI, the national health data centre, and the biomedical service unit to effectively manage COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunisation programmes. The newly hired staff of the Ministry of Health will receive specialised training while health care workers involved in immunisation initiatives will be trained on vaccination and disease control.