Coronavirus

Four in ten Brazilian cities unable to properly store vaccines

covid vaccines storage brazil
Photo: Joe McUbed/Shutterstock

According to a study published by the Locomotive Institute, 40 percent of Brazilian cities lack the proper infrastructure to store Covid-19 vaccines. The institute consulted health authorities from 5,559 municipalities. 

Among the most common problems are the scarcity of vaccine refrigerators and the lack of adequate vaccination spaces, suffered by 22 percent and 35 percent of cities, respectively. 

Furthermore, almost one-fifth of cities do not have access to an online vaccination registry. 

In Latin America, the lack of sufficient vaccination infrastructure has underpinned the region’s slow immunization efforts. Haiti is the only Latin American country yet to administer a single Covid-19 vaccine, complaining that they lack refrigerators to keep stock supplies. Single-shot vaccines could help mitigate this problem, but none are available for use in the continent.