POST 00642E : IMPROVING COVERAGE

POST 00642E : IMPROVING COVERAGE 25 February 2004 ___________________________________ Posting by the moderator : Those of you who have looked at the TechNet meeting agenda in details will have noticed a session on "Improving Coverage" Tuesday, 23 March. This is quite important as the final goal of EPI is indeed to protect as many people as possible. As the Technet meeting discussions also draw on those of the forum, I looked back and realized that our discussions have been mostly centered on topics having a great incidence on programme efficiency but largely ignored those that could impact on performance or effectiveness. It is not that there has been no attempt. In Post 00512E, all the way back to 21 October 2002, Robert Davis from UNICEF was asking if anybody knew of well-documented studies about dropout reduction efforts. This was well over one year ago. This request did not elicitate any substantial reaction from members. More recently, Marie-Christine Balley from Bénin, was asking for suggestions on ways to improve vaccination coverage (Post 00584E of 18 July 2003) Finally Robert Steinglass was sharing in Posts 00596E and 00597E PowerPoint presentations highlighting the challenge facing the international community. The number of countries still below 80% coverage is still very high. The reaction to these last two postings was limited to one message from Dexter Bersonda (mailto:[log in to unmask]) to Robert that I decided to post below. Dexter's contribution is very interesting and it highlights another problem that we carry along, inadequate reporting by many countries, particularly in the industrialized world. However, I believe Robert's intention was then focused on a potential discussion on programme effectiveness broadly speaking. If some of you have consulted the GAVI website recently, you will have noticed that the last GAVI Board has approved new grants to increase coverage in eight countries (see the press realease :"Eight Developing Countries to be Paid $15m for Immunizing More Children"). Under the program, countries applied for the grants by submitting to GAVI their longterm strategies to reach more children. I couldn't find information on these proposals and what are these strategies that countries will use. And why out of sixteen countries, only eight succeded in having their grants approved. Strategies are critical, it's not only a question of money. I hope that this message will induce some of our members to have an input in a discussion on how to increase coverage. I am sure that those closely involved with GAVI processes and operations can make valuable contributions. We have learned so much through and since UCI not to let this last achievement a one-time feat. --------------------------------------------------- Dexter's contribution: We have received the DTP3 Vaccination Coverage maps (POST 00597E) and would just like to ask if the maps can be modified to consider the countries who had reported for at least two years. In our region the Philippines, Japan and Republic of Korea had reported DTP3 coverage for 2 out of the three years. Japan had DTP3 coverage for the two years at more than 80% while the Philippines and Republic of Korea data indicate You will find instructions to subscribe, a direct access to archives, links to reference documents and other features. ______________________________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to : mailto:[log in to unmask] Leave the subject area BLANK In the message body, write unsubscribe TECHNET21E ______________________________________________________________________________ The World Health Organization and UNICEF support TechNet21. The TechNet21 e-Forum is a communication/information tool for generation of ideas on how to improve immunization services. It is moderated by Claude Letarte and is hosted in cooperation with the Centre de coopération internationale en santé et développement, Québec, Canada (http://www.ccisd.org) ______________________________________________________________________________