in august of 2009, uganda was declared polio free. in november of 2010, a new case was discovered, threatening a polio outbreak. polio is a highly contagious virus and many rural ugandans are not vaccinated against it. 

when outbreak threatened, the government called jewish heart for africa. thanks to our local staff, dr. samson wamani and robert khakhosi, the ugandan government is aware of our work providing Israeli solar technologies to rural medical clinics, and we were among the first called in to help. our rural solar powered refrigerators became outposts for the vaccination campaign. 

over the course of the three month campaign, our refrigerators stored over 65,000 lifesaving vaccines. each day, healthcare workers took vaccines from our refrigerators and packed them into cold packs on the backs of their bicycles, going door to door, village to village, immunizing families against the disease.

the campaign has been a great success, and the ugandan ministry of health thanked jewish heart for africa for our efforts: "we would not have hit the targeted number without your support.” 

to learn more about the polio vaccine campaign, read our press release.