In Africa, 52% of children hospitalized with severe and life-threatening anemia who are not able to receive a blood transfusion immediately die by 8 hours with 90% of these deaths occurring within 2.5 hours of hospital admission (ICCARE). Only 4% of children who received a transfusion within 8 hours die, emphasizing the importance of the availability of blood transfusion as a life-saving intervention The most common cause of maternal deaths in Africa is severe bleeding, which contributes to over 40% of maternal deaths. It has been estimated that a quarter of these women die because of blood shortages due to the unavailability of the cold chain. The lack of reliable cold storage and inefficient cold chain management results in high waste rates and poor immunization coverage (MSF, 2014). WHO (2014) reports that in 2011, more than 2.8 million doses of vaccines were lost due to cold chain disruptions in five countries, and various studies pointed out the risk of vaccine freezing. Vaccines that are exposed to too hot or too cold temperatures may not only lose their effectiveness but also prove deadly to the vulnerable populations they are intended to protect Gricd aims to play a part in bridging the gaps in the healthcare cold chain in Sub-Saharan Africa. To this effect Gricd was setup with majorly two (2) objectives; 1. To build innovative, affordable cold chain solutions for storage and transportation by embedding technology with already available social science solutions to enhance the efficiency of the solution. 2. To educate individuals in the relevant industries about modern and standardized cold chain practices.
