On an island in Lake Victoria, a new vaccine storage facility is saving lives
In just a matter of months, the new vaccine store on Mfangano island has levelled out stock-out issues at island health centres, and sent vaccination rates skyrocketing.
- 8 April 2025
- 4 min read
- by Pius Sawa
Pamela Mohammad, 40, a resident of Wakinga village on the island of Mfangano in the Kenyan portion of Lake Victoria, used to have to travel by motorbike to Sena Health Centre on the eastern point of the island each time one of her children needed a vaccine. Often, she found the health facility had no vaccines in stock, and returned home frustrated.
“Imagine you have wasted money on hiring a motorbike, perhaps it has rained and you reach the health centre only to be told that the vaccines have not come, or they are out of stock, and the health centre is not sure of when the next supplies will be available,” Mohammad said.
Just a few months since the vaccine store was set up, vaccine coverage with the five-in-one pentavalent vaccine has gone up from 65%, to around 86%.
Keeping the island health centres equipped was complicated. For many years, health workers on four islands of Homabay – Mfangano, Ringiti, Rema and Takawiri – had needed to travel to the mainland to pick up vaccines. When their travel plans were disrupted, so was supply.
Repeated disappointment discouraged many mothers from bringing their children to the health facilities at all. Some mothers recall resorting to typically ineffective traditional herbs to treat rashes related to measles and other diseases when outbreaks, inevitably, sprang up.
New vaccine store, rising immunisation rates
But at the end of 2024, a vaccine store was established on Mfangano, making it far easier for health centres on all four of the islands to restock.
Elvis Orimba Odhiambo, the nurse in charge of the new Suba West Sub County Vaccine Store, says it has already made a colossal difference. “Initially there could be zero stocks, like, for a whole month,” he recalled. “You could find that the health facility, which had some stock, could vaccinate only five children a month, and zero stocks for especially measles and BCG.”
Nurses travelling to pick up a new consignment of doses from the mainland ended up spending money from their own pockets to cover their meals and accommodation on the journey – if they found that the larger mainland store had also run out of supplies, they would need to book a room to stay till the next day.
That’s all changed. Just a few months since the vaccine store was set up, vaccine coverage on the islands with the five-in-one pentavalent vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, Haemophilus influenzatype B and hepatitis B, has gone up from 65% to around 86%.
The store operates five days a week and serves a population of over 30,000 people, out of which over 1,000 are children under one year, Odhiambo explains. “Operating five days a week means [any] facility which runs out of stock can come and collect the vaccines at any time.”
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Relief for parents
Mother-of-four Pamela Mohammad says it’s a relief to spend less time at Sena Health Centre in Mfangano, because there are no more delays, as the vaccines are always available. “When they tell you bring your child on a Monday, or Thursday, you will find no long queues, and you will come back home in time to do other chores.”
But she’s well aware that the improvement in vaccine access on the island means is sparing families more than time. She reports having witnessed her friend lose a child to measles, due to lack of vaccine. “Without the vaccine, a disease like measles will just kill a child, and that’s what happened to my friend,” she said.
A “life-saver” in need of a back-stop
Dr Arthur Otula is a Specialist Community Public Health Nurse SCPHN in Suba west sub county, Mfangano.
“Since the sub county vaccine store was installed in the sub county, the Fully Immunized Child (FIC) rate has improved due to accessibility of the vaccines,” he said. Edwina Anyango from National Vaccine and Immunization Program says the vaccine store is a “life-saver”. “With this store in the islands, we expect to see more children reached, and the number of under-immunised and zero-dose children reducing,” she explained.
Currently operating on a single generator fridge by the Kenya Power and Lighting Company KPLC, vaccine store staff have appealed for a solar-powered refrigerator as a backup, in case the electric generator breaks down.
“We are pushing for a solar backup generator to maintain the cold chain. We don’t want a situation where the island is in total black-out because of relying on one generator,” said Odhiambo.
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