Economic benefits of keeping vaccines at ambient temperature during mass vaccination: the case of Meningitis A vaccine in Chad

The subject of the present study was a mass campaign against meningitis A that covered three regions of Chad and resulted in the vaccination of 1 807 158 individuals in December 2011. Although 12 districts, 668 fixed health posts, 287 outreach posts and 55 mobile teams implemented the campaign, the infrastructure supporting the CCL system used throughout the campaign was weak.8 The campaign therefore provided a good case study for exploring the benefits of CTC. The main aim of the present study was to model the economic benefits that could have been obtained had the vaccine used in this campaign been kept at or near ambient temperatures at the peripheral levels of the supply chain system. The flexibility offered by being able to keep vaccines in a CTC at the periphery could have far-reaching benefits, especially for the 450 million people at risk of meningitis who live in the African “meningitis belt”.