The state of Yap is scattered across the Pacific Ocean, its coral atolls and volcanic islands spanning some 600 miles. Home to 11,000 people, Yap, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, hovers just north of the equator, roughly 1,000 miles east of the Philippines.
Last summer, the state’s health authorities found themselves in a bind. Dengue fever, a painful mosquito-borne disease, was spreading on the main island, and clinics on outer islands urgently needed preventative medical supplies. But Yap’s main means of transportation, a diesel-burning cargo ship, wasn’t working.