Cross River State Government has partnered Blackfrog Technologies Limited, an Indian company specializing in medical grade refrigeration systems for immunization, vaccine traceability, biological specimen storage, and pharmaceutical logistics, toward improving its healthcare system with focus to achieve universal health coverage by 2030.
The Technical Adviser to Governor Bassey Otu on Universal Health Coverage, Dr David Ushie on Tuesday in Calabar, announced the partnership with Black Frog, to enhance the state’s healthcare delivery system.
He stated that the partnership is aimed to leverage Black Frog’s technology and expertise in vaccine safety, distribution, and healthcare promotion to improve universal health coverage across the 18 LGAs of Cross River State.
He said, “His Excellency, Governor Bassey Otu created this office last year 2024 and we spent the last seven months developing the framework and then developed the contact centre and the entire activities that constitute the objectives of this office are taking place in the coordination centre along Mary Slessor in Calabar.
“So this partnership began since we activated the centre with Black Frog, being a major private sector driver in universal health coverage, because they do a lot in the technology of vaccine safety, vaccine distribution and everything associated with healthcare promotion at the primary level”, he added.
Ushie further stated that Cross River was the second state in Nigeria, after Kaduna, to adopt drone technology for vaccine delivery, stressing that drones have been flying across Northern and Central region of the state, enhancing vaccine access.
While applauding the Black Frog company for their new technologies known as “Emvolio, last mile envelope vaccine refrigerator” which can be used to leverage efforts on universal health coverage, said the technology, when deployed in the state will help to maintain in vaccine coverage across the entire communities in the state.
Chief of Operations at Blackfrog Technologies, Donson D’Souza, explained that the company is partnering to deploy Emvolio, a last-mile vaccine carrier, a portable active cooling device that will aide delivery of vaccines and other biologicals like blood, serums, and viral culture which require to be kept strictly in the field.
“This devices can be deployed to reach areas where we are not able to vaccinate or immunize the populations because of multiple reasons. It also is compatible with solar power as well. We also provide flexible solar panels that fold into a suitcase which can be taken to these areas to charge Emvolio”, he added.
