This new ‘refrigerator backpack’ could help transport vaccines to remote areas

A student in the UK has designed a miniature, mobile refrigerator that can fit inside a backpack to easily transport medical supplies and vaccines to people in remote areas. The portable device has been shown to keep vaccines at an optimal temperature for up to 30 days, and if it lives up to its potential, health experts have predicted that it could help treat more than 1.5 million people around the world. “I make things every day for people who have everything,” the inventor, Will Broadway, told Michael Baggs from the BBC. “I wanted to make something for people who have next to nothing. It should be a basic human right, in my opinion, to have a vaccination. I don’t think that it should be patented to restrict use.” Right now, getting vaccines to people in developing countries in Africa and parts of Asia relies on something called the ‘cold chain transport’ – a...