Keep vaccines cool in poor countries with electricity from cellphone masts

STAFF at Morganster Hospital,which serves a remote community in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo province, used to sleep fitfully. If the power failed and a back-up generator was offline – common problems in the impoverished nation – they would have to jump out of bed and drive for 26 kilometres to stash their stock of life-saving vaccines in a fridge in the provincial capital.

Philadelphia Inquirer (12/20/2010) - The juxtaposition of people from the worlds of communications and public health gave Rubin an idea: Why not use the leftover energy from cell-phone towers to power refrigerators for vaccines? 

During his Friday, September 24, 2010, interview with BBC, Dr. Harvey Rubin introduced the mission and purpose of Energize the Chain.  Dr. Rubin described the feasibility of the link between private sector telecommunications and the vaccine cold chain (comments begin @ ~11:45 min).

NEW YORK — I was intrigued to learn the other day that there are now more cellphones in India than toilets. Almost half the Indian population, 563.7 million people, is hooked up to modern communications, while just 366 million have access to modern sanitation, according to a United Nations study.