Managing cold chain equipment is getting easierby Sophie Newland, David Lubinski, and John Lloyd, PATH Introducing newer, bulkier vaccines into a national immunization schedule can be a tricky job for logisticians. Is there enough space? Is there enough equipment? Is it in the right location? Is t...

Fee-based immunization in Vietnam—what can we learn?by Dai Hozumi, PATH, and Nguyen Van Cuong, NIHE While most people in Vietnam receive traditional Expanded Programme on Immunization vaccines free from government-run clinics and health centers, many others elect to receive these and other immunizat...

Albania explores computerized immunization registries by Jan Grevendonk, PATH, and Olivier Ronveaux, WHO In early 2009, the Albanian Institute for Public Health (IPH) asked Optimize, a WHO-PATH collaboration, to develop a strategy for a computerized national immunization registry and vaccine orderin...

by Michel Zaffran, WHO; Julie Milstien, consultant; and Modibo Dicko, WHO It has long been known that certain vaccines are stable for long periods of time at temperatures outside the standard cold chain protocol of 2[sup]o[/sup] to 8[sup]o[/sup]C. However, until recently, there have been few rea...

Optimizing presentation and packaging for HPV vaccinesby Debbie Kristensen and D. Scott LaMontagne, PATH Working in collaboration with the Vaccine Presentation and Packaging Advisory Group (VPPAG), representatives from the public health community have initiated a series of studies to guide presentat...

Dear colleagues, According to your experience, what is the main target (and steps) population for H1N1 vaccine? In my country, first healthcare professionals (this week) followed by school children (age definition not described yet). For childhood population: you prefer to first vaccinate the high r...

Dear Sir Good day. I have faced one question regarding NIDs, which is: if one of the governorates or provinces in any country achieves a routine immunization coverage rate of more than 95%, is there need to proceed with NIDs? This question was raised in Iraq. My first response: I reminded him (o...

Currently Abhay Clinics are providing vaccine refrigerators to private practitioners in their network. Government agencies use the old Bluestar or VestFrost ILRs at the block and district levels and Walk In Coolers above this. Voltas does not seem to make ILRs. The new Haier ILRs appear to be of a d...

Dear Friends, The ever increasing number of children getting paralysed in India is a matter of serious concern, nobody is talking about. Here is just a small evidence (see the attachment) to show that we need to look beyond polio eradication strategies to minimise the total number of children suffer...

Dear Friends, Here is more on intradermal delivery of vaccines. As many as 10 vaccines can be given intradermally to spare costs as well as doses, but unfortunately this is not promoted by vested interests. Please see the link on the WHO website: http://www.who.int/immunization_delivery/systems_poli...

New research results published today! Available at:(http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/9?issue=S1). This is to announce the publication today of a journal supplement titled The Fallacy of coverage: uncovering disparities and improving immunization coverage - The Canadian International Immuni...

Information gathered from the Health Ministry through the RTI Act confirms the overall shortage of 17 crore doses for diphtheria, measles, tetanus and oral polio vaccine.The shortage for diphtheria vaccine is nine crore doses, followed by 3.14 crore for tetanus, three crore for oral polio vaccine an...

The Advanced Immunization Management (AIM) e-Learning website launched a new module on 7 October to support the World Health Organization's computer-based Measles Strategic Planning (MSP) tool. The MSP was developed to help countries develop measles vaccination strategies to meet their measles contr...

The Government of India's Health Ministry is developing a software which will keep a thorough record of all health campaigns, including immunisation. "The outcome of immunisation drives is not satisfactory. I asked my officers how they arrive at these figures and the reply was not very convinc...

Juliana Abakah-Katz from UNICEF sends in this contribution on the New and Emerging Talent Initiative Programme (NETI), whichis an entry point for external professionals interested in an international career with UNICEF. As part of UNICEF’s global talent management strategy to achieve its current and...

Dear Friends, A Modeling Study concludes that new vaccines could substantially reduce TB incidence and mortality. Similarily, I strongly feel that the recent 31% success with the new HIV vaccine could have been further enhanced if given in conjunction with ART. Please see the link below: http://www...

Dear Friends, Here is more on intradermal Influenza vaccine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18652550                 http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/22/2286 The government of India is importing 2.8 million ...

Dear Friends, After Virorab, Sanofi-Pasteur has come out with a low-cost Intradermal Influenza vaccine Intanza® / IDflu® vaccine*, see the link below, http://198.73.159.214/sanofi-pasteur2/ImageServlet?imageCode=24890&siteCode=SP_CORP Dr. Omesh BhartiM.B.B.S.,D.H.M.,M.A.E.(Epidemiology)Dir...

Dear Friends, It is a great pleasure to know that now Virorav has also come out with the intradermal option (attachment). This will be a further boost to the intradermal ARV campaign in India to controll rabies. After Rabipur, Abhyrab and Indirav, this will be the fourth drug offer...

Dear Technet Subscribers, I have attached a study conducted in Pakistan on the use of re-designed immunization cards, in an attempt to provide relief from the almost exclusively CC and logistics focus of Technet's recent discussions (shades of the old Technet, when cold chain ruled!) Cheers, Tasnim ...