Gates Package — page 1048

routine infant vaccines. But getting to the remaining 15 percent is a big challenge. (If it were easy, it would've been done by now.) <~?~Insert art 031_Gate_9780593534489_art_r1> Global vaccination coverage at its highest. The percentage of children who receive three doses of diphtheria-, tetanus-, and pertussis-containing vaccines (DTP3) has improved substantially since 1980. (WHO) For the sake of making sure every child gets the basic vaccines that most of the world enjoys, and preparing to stop outbreaks before they go global, we need to be able to deliver vaccines everywhere, even in the most remote places. Let's look at what it takes to get a vaccine from the factory all the way to the patient. Depending on where a container of vaccines is headed, there might be as many as seven way stations along the route. The container arrives in a country by boat or plane and is taken to a national storage facility. From there, it will be shipped to a regional facility, then a district one, then a subdistrict one, and then a community facility. From there, a health worker will load up a pack of vaccines and go around the local area, vaccinating people in and around their homes. At every step of the way, the container has to maintain just the right temperature, not just at each storage facility, but on the road from one facility to another as well. The power could go out at any one of the facilities, shutting down refrigerators and putting the vaccines at risk of spoiling. Ultimately, vaccines only reach the people who need them because of the health workers who are dedicated to taking them that last mile. Their work requires precision and stamina--they often have to walk many miles every day on their rounds--and can be risky. Depending on which vaccines they're administering, they might have to prepare each dose by diluting a powder