We must do more to make sure everyone has access to essential health services. Investing in #immunization can help strengthen health systems and advance #UHC. #ProtectedTogether #VaccinesWork I’m sharing the good news from this week’s meeting of the Pan-African Parliamentarians (PAP) and AFRO to advance the dialogue and commitments on the implementation of the African Union AU Declaration on Universal Access to Immunization.

Announcing a new Topic resource page: EPI Core Reference Materials, now available on TechNet here: https://www.technet-21.org/en/topics/epi-core-reference
On this page, you will have accesss to a list of key reference materials published by the WHO Expanded...

WHO recently published a new guidance document: “A practical handbook for planning, implementing and strengthening vaccination in the second year of life” (2YL Handbook). The 2YL Handbook provides detail on the practical steps for planning, managing, implementing, and monitoring vaccination during a scheduled visit, or visits, in the second year of life. It also provides useful steps ...

Dear all, Did you know that there is a dedicated subsite on Immunization Supply Chain (iSC) strengthening on TechNet-21? In 2014, the Gavi Alliance partners developed the Gavi Immunization Supply Chains (iSC) Strategy around strengthening country immunization  supply chains, focusing on five fundamentals: Data for Management; System Design; Leadership; Cold Chain Equipment; and Continuous Improvement Plans.  The iSC subsite houses information, tools, and resources that can hel...

WHO has released the updated surveillance standards for more than 20 vaccine-preventable diseases. Each disease is its own self-contained chapter, available in color and in black and white (for ease of printing).  There is also an introductory chapter detailing some of the basics of surveillance.  French and Russian translations will be available in the coming months.  

Dear colleagues, In 2017, WHO, PATH, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF and Gavi launched the Vaccine Innovation Prioritisation Strategy (VIPS), with the aim to drive vaccine product innovation to better meet country needs and support Alliance goals on immunisation coverage and equity. Product innovation refers to completely new vaccine products or adaptations to existing products that provide measurable financial or programmatic benefits to low and middle income countries (L...

Dear Colleagues, WHO guidelines for home-based records were just recently released - WHO recommendations on home-based records for maternal, newborn and child health. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018. The recommendations, rationale and remarks below are abstracted from the document, which has been uploaded to the

Working together to unlock the lifesaving power of data 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of WHO and UNICEF’s Joint Reporting Form (JRF) on Immunization – a single form used by all countries to record data on national immunization rates and cases of vaccine-preventable diseases; track vaccine supply and pricing; and monitor immunization schedules and policies. Since the introduction of the form in 1998, immunization data for more than 2.7 billion newborns have been recorded using the JR...

I am really interested in the potential benefits that blockchain technology could bring to immunization. There have been many discussions on vaccine packaging and barcoding as I can recall, and I was wondering if blockchain technology was mentioned (or even central now!) during those discussions, and also if some of you would have some stories to share about using this technology at all.  It seems from several sources, including the

This document is designed to support EPI managers and their teams in the implementation of EIR-related information systems, using the various experiences compiled at the global level – and, especially, in the Region of the Americas – as a foundation. Within this context, the main objectives of this document are as follows: 1) To generate knowledge related to information systems and immunization regis...

The second edition of the user manual for the revised WHO classification for the causality assessment of an adverse event following immunization (AEFI) was developed by the WHO with support from the Global Advisory Committee for Vaccine Safety (GACVS). This was based on the findings of a scientific study, “Indo- Zimbabwe inter-country study to assess the inter-rater reliability of the WHO AEFI causality assessment methodology and the utility of the new WHO AEFI causality assessment software” ...

Dear TechNet community members, Warm greetings! The cold chain situation in many countries is sub-optimal and affects the capacity of national immunization programs to deliver potent vaccines to all women and children.To help improve this situation, the Gavi Board approved the Cold Chain Equipment Platform Optimization Platform (CCEOP) in 2015 with the purpose to support the purchase of CCE. Since 2016, CCEOP WHO pre-reviews and GAVI Independent Review Committee (IRC) revealed countri...

WHO/HQ/EPI is interested in strengthening immunization outreach efforts by creating some related job aids for health workers.  To this end, we would appreciate your perspective on some of the barriers undermining this critical part of vaccination activities.  We request you to complete a small 5 to 10 minutes survey.    Should you know of additional experts with first-hand knowledge and experience around this issue, please forward this survey to them.  The survey will be open...

Un cours Scholar pour les praticiens de la santé impliqués dans la planification de la vaccination, pour développer leur capacité  L’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS) invite les praticiens qui contribuent directement
à la planification de la vaccination au niveau national ou infra-national à se joindre à l’une
des deux cohortes du cours Scholar SPMVS.
✔✔ La première cohorte débute le 5 mars 2018 et se termine le 20 avril 2018.
✔✔ La deuxième cohorte débute le...

AWAY WITH THE DOGMA! 1: “Monitoring Closed Vial Wastage”   This is the first Blog in a series to encourage vaccine supply chain planners to consider changes without being constrained by some, dogmatic operational policies of the Expanded Program on Immunization. Taking one issue at a time I shall explain its origin, why it is no longer helpful and suggest alternatives for us to debate.   So please, open the attached file and I look forward to your frank reactio...

The World Health Organization Global Routine Immunization Strategies and Practices (GRISP) course team invites you to join our digital (online) Commencement Event to recognize the work and celebrate the achievement of the WHO GRISP Scholars Date: 12 December 2017 Time: 14h00 (2 PM) UTC+1 Geneva (check time) Registration: https://attendee.gototraining.com/r/684580...

Here is a link to an interesting article that a colleague sent me: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/11/28/tens-thousands-dying-from-30b-fake-drugs-trade-who-says.html Basically, it reports on a study of the (potential) extent of damage from fake, adulterated or expired vaccines.  My question is more specifically whether someone has studied similar effects of losses in ...

As part of the WHO African region efforts to improve immunization and surveillance performances in terms of quality, effectiveness, efficiency, coverage and equity and in order to strengthen the capacity of policy makers and health providers in countries, there is a need for accurate data in order to gauge the effectiveness of existing policies and programs in health care system to make it more accessible and reliable. Guided by the WHO regional office, the IVD cluster of the Inter-co...

Data for over 20 000 subnational entities were received, which represents about two-thirds of all the surviving infants worldwide. The information is essential for countries to target their efforts to address gaps and increase immunization coverage. By visiting our website ( http://www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/data/subnational/en/) you will be able to access a summary present...

Following the July 2017 release of the WHO and UNICEF estimates of national immunization coverage and the corresponding chorus of concerns about sustained (i.e., a more positive alternative to the term “stagnated” that is frequently used) levels of vaccination coverage since around 2010 that seems to follow, I thought it useful to remind readers that the number of children vaccinated is increasing! Unfortunately, the number of children vaccinated from one year to the next during the recent pe...

The WHO Guidance Note on "Engagement of private/nongovernmental health providers in immunization service delivery: Considerations for National Immunization Programmes" has recently been published on the WHO website: www.who.int/immunization/documents/policies/WHO_IVB_17.15/en/ This Guidance Note for national immunization programmes aims to: Present considerations regarding the involvement...

The Immunization Summary app, which is  great tool initiated by Olivier Beauvais, is now updated and includes data up to 2016. Using the app will  allow you accessing immunization data in a dynamic way, by  generating  visuals (tables, graphs, maps) on schedules, on a selected set of vaccine preventable diseases incidence data, on immunization coverage levels and on various programmatic and systemic indicators (related to policies, activities, management, performance,…). You can downl...

Dear TechNet Colleagues, I am pleased to share a workshop report on the Francophone OpenLMIS User-Centered Design Workshop facilitated by VillageReach and hosted at the PATH Senegal Headquarters in Dakar, Senegal, in July.  12 attendees from Ministry of Health Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) programs plus WHO International representation attended this 3-day workshop on user-centered software design in Dakar. Participants came from Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Guinea and...

Dear Technet21 Members, We are pleased to invite you to take part in our new survey about the WHO Performance, Quality and Safety (PQS) website. We want to make sure the website is functioning optimally for all its users, and so we are keen to learn more about why and how you use the PQS website, and what your personal experience has been. Answering the survey questions will take around 7-10 minutes of your time. The survey will remain open until the 30th of September and shor...

We are happy to share with you this article produced by the Federal University of Minas Gerais and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), showing some of the benefits of the use of electronic medical records, standards and interoperability on the quality of care, and also some preliminary evidence indicating that the use of eHealth interventions with information exchange may improve clinical process outcomes. Reference: Reis ZSN, Maia TA, Marcolino MS, Becerra-Posada...

Immunization Academy (www.immunizationacademy.com) is a new initiative sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, providing open access to short, practical training videos. The videos support a growing list of immunization topics, using WHO-approved guidance. Currently more than 40 videos on data monioring topics are available. They can be accessed and viewed by anyone working in support of immun...

A Supplement on EPI in Ethiopia recently published in the Pan African Medical Journal. http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/series/27/2/...

Dear TechNet, I hope you can join us during World Immunization Week for a webinar on the challenges of immunizing the urban poor and how the global community can adapt to meet the unique needs of this marginalized and under-served population. Representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF will share perspectives. Information is below. Please feel free to to contact with any questions or comments. Thank you,
Diane ________...

Dear TechNet-21 Community, For many years, pharmacists have been involved in supply chain and supporting campaigns to support immunization by patients, but they are more and more involved in the delivery of immunization services (adding up to the existing immunization team). This was highlighted in its last FIP report "An overview of current pharmacy impact on immunisation: A global report" (see attachment). This report was based on data collected from 45 coun...

Since it seems that this got lost during the TechNet-21 hack, I am reposting. This was published in the Global Immunization Newsletter, January 2017:http://www.who.int/immunization/gin/en/ Last year, we saw great data visualisations, including an animated map showing the reduction in the number of unvaccinated children overtime, and the report of the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) was more interactive than ever (see: dynamic graphs of GVAP indicators in TechNet-21 ). WHO country pr...