Australia’s nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, is battling an unfolding COVID crisis. The Morrison government is urgently to the nation’s health workers – but poor electricity access means there are serious questions over PNG’s broader vaccine roll-out.
Vaccine supplies must be stored at cold or ultra-cold temperatures along the supply chain. Importantly, when the vaccines reach hospitals and medical centres in PNG, stable electricity will be needed to power refrigerators to store the doses before they’re administered to patients.
Currently only of Papua New Guinea’s eight million people have reliable access to electricity. This is not an isolated problem. In 2019, about globally lived in “energy poverty”, without access to electricity – and the problem has grown worse due to COVID.
Australia is working to for wider distribution in PNG. But the pandemic only when the vaccines are rolled out globally. Countries and communities without electricity access present a major barrier to this goal.
Energy poverty matters
Australia enjoys a relatively reliable electricity network, even in remote parts of the country. There are also to keep vaccines cold in the event of a power outage, such as backup power.
But around the world, even in our Pacific neighbourhood, energy poverty is widespread and persistent. And COVID-19 has created a vicious circle for these nations. The pandemic has forced governments to shift priorities, leading to less funding for electricity infrastructure. In some countries, progress in electricity access has reversed for the first time in many years.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) this reversal is being worst felt in .
There, 580 million people lack access to electricity - three quarters of the world’s total. The IEA this number grew by 6% in 2020.
It cites Uganda, where public subsidies for an electricity access program have been put on hold, and South Africa where funds to expand rural electrification were redirected to health and welfare programs.
PNG wants 70% of the country connected to electricity by 2030. This will require large scale investment in new generation capacity, and transmission and distribution lines to connect people to the grid. But the nation has long suffered , and the pandemic has only added to this.
Making matters worse, the true extent and trajectory of COVID-19 may be uncertain in nations suffering energy poverty. For example, there is of under-testing in Africa and of cases and deaths in PNG.
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Vaccine refrigeration is key
As , efforts to end the pandemic have largely focused on developing, testing and manufacturing an effective vaccine. Less attention has been paid to distributing it rapidly at scale.
There are exceptions. has identified local deployment as one of four key dimensions for an effective global vaccination roll-out.
More than have already been administered, mostly in high- and middle-income countries with effective financial and planning resources.
But in countries where electricity access is poor, refrigeration of vaccines during transport and storage may prove very difficult. Some countries may not be able to vaccinate large parts of their population.
The Pfizer vaccine must be frozen at . The AstraZeneca vaccine must be kept at between .
Ultra-cold supply chains were established for the deployment of the Ebola vaccine in Africa in 2013–14. However, the scale required for COVID is enormous, and would be .
As reported in the Lancet, as of 2018, member states of the World Health Organisation had no adult vaccination program for any disease. Fewer than 11% of countries in Africa and South Asia reported having such a program. This was thought to be partly due to a lack of systems for storage and delivery.
Alarmingly, a suggested more than 85 less-developed countries will not have widespread access to COVID vaccines until 2023.
Many are relying on the World Health Organisation’s , which aims to secure six billion doses of vaccine for less developed countries. Similarly, the Quad regional grouping – Australia, the US, Japan, and India – to boost vaccine production and distribution for Asian and Pacific island countries.
But without access to reliable electricity, the roll-out of these vaccines will be hampered. This is particularly an issue in countries with remote and dispersed populations. There, keeping the vaccine cold over the “last mile” of distribution and storage may prove impossible.
Energy access is key to ending the pandemic
Communities experiencing energy poverty, such as in PNG, face other setbacks when it comes to managing the pandemic. Those populations are more likely to use solid fuels, such as wood, for cooking. This leads to indoor air pollution which can cause and COVID-19 symptoms.
Without electricity access, such communities are unlikely to provide appropriate COVID-19 health responses, leading to a higher burden of disease.
In PNG, an “”, of which Australia is a key partner, appears on track. For instance, at a virtual summit at the height of the pandemic last August, to financing a large-scale solar plant in Morobe Province. It would be one of the largest solar plants in the Pacific.
But as immunisation emerges as the world’s primary weapon to combat COVID-19, much more work is needed to improve electricity access to those who desperately need it. Indeed, ending the global pandemic may demand it.
, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, ; , Professor of Chemical Engineering, , and , Senior Research Fellow, Sustainable Minerals Institute, .
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