Wireless sensor warns if vaccines get too hot

A wireless sensor that sends text message alerts to healthcare workers could help better protect temperature-sensitive vaccines and provide crucial data on storage, transport and distribution infrastructures in developing nations, according to its inventors. After successfully piloting the ColdTrace sensor in Kenya, US non-profit tech firm Nexleaf Analytics expanded the field tests to India and Mozambique. It says the system will soon also be piloted in Haiti. At approximately US$65 per device, the sensor costs a fraction of the price of competitors’ models, says Nexleaf Analytics project coordinator Shahrzad Yavari. “We have observed first hand that the absence of the right information at the right time prevents even the most committed clinic workers from ensuring that vaccine storage refrigerators are operating correctly 24 hours a day,” says Yavari. “ColdTrace aims to ensure that vaccines and other temperature-sensitive medications are stored safely by providing low-cost, remote temperature monitoring of the cold chain.” Yavari tells SciDev.Net that...