Vaccine Flight

Many of the villages we fly to every day can be reached by other modes of transportation, however it's typically a combination of both boat and car or moto. A trip like this is expensive, dangerous, and quite time consuming. We know of two villages that are only 15 miles apart, but it can take up to a full day of travel to go through the deteriorated jungle trails on a motorcycle. 

Every couple of months, we partner with a local doctor to deliver vaccines to some isolated clinics in the interior of the Congo. I was able to go on this most recent trip where on the first day we landed at 6 villages. On the second day, we delivered to 4 more villages. And on the third day, we offloaded vaccines at 3 more destinations.

One of the other pilots who was on the trip with me.

Visiting these 13 villages using a method other than an airplane would have taken several weeks to accomplish. Also consider that most of the medicines we were transporting require a "cold chain," or constant refrigeration, and it would have been an impossible trip without the small aircraft. The medication would have gone bad.

Over a ton of medications, syringes, and other
miscellaneous medical supplies

Every day, we would begin at our home airport and load roughly 1,000 kilos (2,200 lbs) of medications, syringes, and medical supplies in to the airplane. After making our rounds, we would return to Ndolo and prepare the airplane for the next day.

Everything loaded and ready to go

All in all, over 3 days of travel, we were able to deliver 5.5 tons of vaccines to fight Polio, yellow fever, pneumococcus, and a few other diseases.

Unloading the supplies

In Kinshasa, we see the effects of Polio every day driving down the street. We also recently had a yellow fever outbreak that we helped combat. These are not vaccines of convenience, or something to do just in case. There is no "herd immunity" such as we have in developed countries. If children, pregnant women, or the rest of the population are not vaccinated, it is nearly a certainty there will be an epidemic and many, many people will become disabled (which is worse than death in an unforgiving place like the jungle) or die. 

Unloaded much needed supplies

These vaccine runs are just an example of many vital flights we are able to accomplish with small aircraft because of our love for the isolated people of Congo.

Vaccines

Getting your vaccines in the states is normally a simple process. You go to the doctor or health clinic, tell them what you need, they give them to you, and you are done. Not so here. This process definitely raises your blood pressure.*

*(Please note that this is my personal experience as I have not been brave enough to try out the pediatrician and see if he vaccinates in office because my French just isn't that great).

First, you decide when to vaccinate and you research the information on your own using the CDC guidelines. Baby boy is 6 months old and fairly healthy. I realized it was time for his first vaccines. To date he is able to receive the standard DTaP, Hib, Polio, Hep B, and Pneumococcal.

Next, you personally call the local missionary PA to see if she is available to give said vaccines and arrange a date to show up at her house. The day before your "appointment" is the best time to fight traffic and drive to the reputable pharmacy known for having a back-up generator (because without it, vaccines that require refrigeration will spoil).

Once at the pharmacy, you get to have an awkward French conversation about which vaccines are available for each illness, which you must now only refer to them by their French names because someone along the way decided that their trade names would not be in Latin.

After getting laughed for not saying pneumocoque correctly, you proceed to pantomime your desire to know if there are any generic vaccines or alternate options because $280.38 is a lot of money for two vaccines. But since I have researched the illnesses and I know the worst case scenarios if contracted and I have compared that to the current outbreaks, I happily pay the price.

Once you have paid, you take your kids to the car and pay the police officer to help you get into the traffic because the pharmacy is at a terrible intersection. Then you proceed to sit in another hour's worth of traffic but wait happily knowing there is no electricity at home and at least you are sitting in the air conditioning!

Now you get to put your medication on ice until your appointment time (the following morning) where you drive to the PA's house and wait for the vaccines to be administered and the CDC card to be filled out.

Your final step is to pick up your toddler from school and look at a note from the teacher about another outbreak of mumps and wish you could give your baby the MMR vaccine early.

Super snugly squish after his shots