KUEBUNYANE, LESOTHO – A Mission Aviation Fellowship aircraft is the only way to safely deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the mountain people of Kuebunyane in Lesotho in Southern Africa.

Kuebunyane comprises several remote villages with a combined population of more than 62,000 and is an eight-hour overland journey from the nearest hospital facility in Qachas Nek. The journey involves a steep, four-hour hike across a deep valley to reach the nearest road, which is a further four-hour drive to Qachas Nek – a journey too difficult for the vaccines to achieve without spoiling.

Transporting three nurses flown exclusively by MAF aircraft to deliver medical care in remote areas, approximately 60 health workers received their first COVID-19 vaccination. Many recipients of the jab walked across mountainous terrain from surrounding villages to reach Kuebunyane, which is located 2,293 metres above sea level.

Mission Aviation Fellowship has been helping to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the mountain people of Kuebunyane in the Southern African nation of Lesotho.

MAF pilot Grant Strugnell recently delivered the first doses of AstraZeneca to a mountainside clinic near Kuebunyane – the most remote airstrip in Lesotho.

He explained why this delivery was so vital for the frontline health care workers in this hard to reach location.

Grant Strugnell, MAF pilot:

The Government of Lesotho has acquired enough vaccines for all the health care workers and that is not just the people who work at the clinic but it’s also health care workers who work in the community in their home villages. So at this clinic today a lot of people have come down from the mountains around here to actually receive the vaccine because they work in their village as a health care worker. So they were included in this round of vaccinations, so that’s really good news.

And MAF continues to be ideally positioned to assist in more critical deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines while working directly with health authorities, NGO partners and local health contacts across the world.

Read more news on Non Profit / Faith Based Organizations, Disaster Relief and the COVID 19 Pandemic on Missions Box.

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