In photos: how vaccines reach the most remote places on earth

Together with our partners, we support vaccination programmes in over 95 countries. It’s a huge job that’s only possible through the sheer determination of thousands of volunteers and health professionals. 

These photos show the incredible lengths they’ll go to keep children safe from disease.
 

Health workers climb mountains

War is the perfect environment for disease to spread. With many hospitals and clinics in Yemen bombed or abandoned, it’s estimated one child dies every ten minutes from a preventable disease.

With no end in sight to the conflict, UNICEF and our partners are responding at a massive scale. Last year, we conducted campaigns to combat cholera outbreaks in high risk areas, including in places where other health services have been cut off by the fighting.

Door-to-door, they reached over 1.5 million people under extremely harsh conditions. Over 4.6 million children were vaccinated against polio and more than 731,000 children under one against measles.  

Each vaccinator has incredible resolve in crossing battle lines, mountains and valleys to vaccinate children. More children die from preventable diseases in Yemen than in the violence, so we simply can’t afford to stop.
 
Diseases can also spread with deadly speed in the aftermath of a natural disaster, when children struggle to find safe drinking water, toilets and soap.
 
After a massive earthquake in Papua New Guinea in 2018, UNICEF supported a nationwide  vaccination campaign to protect children from measles, rubella, and polio. That meant trekking through mountainous, jungle terrain to reach the children hardest hit at the epicentre of the quake.

Almost 1.3 million children under five were vaccinated against polio, while 1.2 million children were immunised against measles and rubella. 

Najeeba works hard every day towards a vision: a world where all children, everywhere are protected against preventable diseases.

Since 2000, Najeeba and thousands of other UNICEF-sponsored health workers have helped vaccinate 2.5 billion children.
 

They cross rivers

UNICEF procured 2.4 billion vaccines in 2017. Their journeys start in our supply warehouses and end in every corner of the world.

No matter where they are, children who are vaccinated have a better chance to survive, thrive and reach their potential. That’s why UNICEF helps vaccines get to those hardest to reach - including the children on the other side of this river.

The persistence of health workers across the world has paid off - with immunisation saving more than two million lives each year from deadly childhood diseases like measles, diarrhoea and pneumonia.
 

Getting vaccines to remote communities isn’t enough. To stay effective, vaccines need to be kept cold in a special carrier. If at any stage the vaccine’s temperature drops below two degrees or rises above eight, it can become unusable.

It’s not an easy job but we can’t give up. Despite progress, nearly 20 million children don’t receive even the most basic vaccines, leaving them vulnerable to dangerous diseases.
 

They drive down long, lonely roads

Even when there’s not an emergency, networks of UNICEF-sponsored health workers help vaccinate children who aren’t being reached. Where poverty, disadvantage and distance break down access to health services, these volunteers and staff bridge the gap. Equipping locals to vaccinate children is a sustainable, long-term strategy that benefits and empowers communities.

And off roads...

They travel by boat...

Distance isn’t the only barrier to getting children vaccinated. UNICEF works with community advocates to dispel myths and make sure families know the life-saving benefits of routine immunisations.
 

This team is one of thousands that has helped eliminate polio in 122 countries since 1988. It’s an incredible achievement made possible through one of the most cost-effective ways of protecting children’s lives: vaccines.
 

...by bicycle...

More children are protected from disease than ever before but there is still much work to be done. In Kayes region of Mali, an area which is dominated by informal gold mining, only 41% of children receive all the vaccines they require to stay healthy.

Mobile vaccinators like Adama Traore are a critical part of the solution.

"Here we are in a gold mine area, and many families work and live here, with their children completely isolated and deprived of any care," Adama says.
 

...and by air.

Even before conflict broke out in South Sudan, the young country was one of the most difficult places in the world to deliver vaccines. Roads are unreliable and travel is dangerous.

When all else fails, UNICEF helps run Rapid Response Missions. We use whatever means necessary to reach the most desperate communities in the least accessible parts of South Sudan. In New Fangkak, South Sudan, UNICEF and our partner agencies could only reach this community by helicopter.  
 

They think outside the box

In remote villages in Vanuatu, families have no access to health centres or electricity and are only accessible by foot or small local "banana" boats. It means one in five children miss out on vaccinations because their communities are so hard to reach. 

Baby Joy missed her first vaccines after birth because no nurses were available in her village that week and the nearest health centre was too far for her mother to walk.

But now thanks to a new program, which uses a drone to deliver vaccines to remote communities, children like Joy won't miss out on life-saving immunisations. 
   

And, they work on the go

Nearly a third of the 27 million babies born in India every year are not fully vaccinated during their critical first year of life. This leaves them vulnerable to disease and leaves health workers trying to catch up.

Being able to provide vaccines to even the most remote places is important because no child should lose their life to a preventable disease. UNICEF works for the survival, protection and development of every child, with a focus on the children who are the most disadvantaged and excluded.