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NIAMEY. — The UN is spending over 20 times more money than usual on fuel for generators to keep millions of vaccines in Niger from spoiling due to incessant power cuts.
The outages are the result of severe economic and travel sanctions imposed by regional countries after mutinous soldiers toppled the country’s president last month.
Country representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund in Niger, Stefano Savi, said on Monday that it has spent US$200 000 powering generators to keep vaccines, including for polio and rotavirus, across the country cold during the first three weeks of August.
That’s up from approximately US$10,000 a month previously and might soon run out of money, he said.
Niger relies on neighbouring Nigeria for up to 90 percent of its power, but after soldiers ousted democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum in July, Nigeria cut off part of its electricity supply as part of sanctions imposed by the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS.
Although there were power cuts before the sanctions, they usually lasted a few hours, but now the cuts are much longer — sometimes up to 18 hours a day, said Savi.
UNICEF only has enough money until the end of August and is appealing to donors for emergency funds, he said. – AP
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