Going strong since 1989

Stemming the Tide of Counterfeit Proof of Vaccination

Recent reports [1] of counterfeit yellow fever vaccination certificates in Zambia follow reports of falsified proof of vaccination documents being used in other countries, including Ethiopia [2], India [3], Nigeria [4], Pakistan [5], Sudan [6], Uganda [7], Tanzania [8] and Zimbabwe [9]. While the World Health Organization (WHO) published guidelines in 1999 [10] to support countries in developing measures to combat counterfeit pharmaceutical products and issued a report in 2017 [11] highlighting the public health and socioeconomic impacts of falsified medical products, neither publication discussed the current problem of false or fraudulently obtained proof of vaccination documentation. Counterfeit proof of vaccination in home-based records (HBRs), particularly those issued to provide documented proof of vaccination against yellow fever virus or polio virus [12], presents a threat to the health and security of countries and their citizens and warrants further discussion and action. Giv...

Call for examples of country materials on VVM

Dear colleagues, I am working on a new book project on VVM. I would like to include examples of the following and shall be grateful if you could kindly contact me. Your help is much appreciated! If you have any of the following, besides sending the material, I'd appreciate it if you could kindly explain and give a short background on the material you are sending (especially for photographs - where it was taken, when it was taken, what is the event, and who is the photographer) Please reply to umit@kartoglu.ch Description Comments VVM posters Any poster related to VVM use. If you have the PDF file copy of the poster, I’d appreciate it if you could send it to me. If you do not have any PDF copy of the poster, please make a photo of it and send the photo. VVM training materials If your country has any experience with running training sessions on VVM, either as a standalone VVM training or incorporated into any other training programme (e.g....

New Materials - Practical guidance to do a vaccination coverage survey

New materials are available on the "Coverage Surveys" page of TechNet-21 (https://www.technet-21.org/en/topics/vaccination-coverage-surveys on the "17 Steps to do a Coverage Survey".

This collection contains a series of documents & presentations outlining the basic steps of a vaccination coverage survey, as well as some presentations on commonly asked questions and variations on a coverage survey. This also contains links to resources (templates, models, examples, etc).

This link takes you to the drop box folder with all the materials.

Is it possible to achieve and sustain >90% FIC and Booster by 2020?

Dear viewers,

A merry Christmas and a Happy new year 2019!

On Christmas Eve of 2012, we shared the first write up on Immunogram as “Xmas gift”. Today, 6 years later, we wish to share it again because it can potentially achieve and sustain ≥90% Full Immunization Coverage (FIC) below one year and booster between 16 & 24 months as a package - see the attached one pager. Hope governments and other stakeholders will take up the success story for replication in a wider area.

best wishes n happy reading

New articles: The BID Initiative featured in MMS Bulletin #148 "Digital Health - A Blessing or Curse for Global Health?"

The BID Initiative is featured in the most recent issue (December 2018) of the MMS Bulletin #148 "Digital Health - A Blessing or Curse for Global Health." "Marrying engineering with health policy to bring digital health to scale," by Steven C. Uggowitzer, Sima C. Newell, Dykki Settle, Alice Liu and David J. Hagan.  Just as medical doctors take the Hippocratic Oath as they graduate into their profession, so do many engineers solemnly promise to carry out work to the highest quality, recognizing that any errors may put lives at stake. Given this sharing of fundamental values, engineering is a profession that could be leveraged even further towards public health information systems to address opportunities created by the fusion of the early and relatively informal eHealth and mHealth paradigms into the more mature and complex one that is Digital Health. Recently, the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted a key resolution on Digital Health, urging member states to assess and prioritis...

Breakthrough? USC researchers have developed a new polio vaccine that doesn't require refrigeration

Hi TechNeters! It was brought to my attention by one of you that USC researchers have developed a new polio vaccine that doesn't require refrigeration. Check out here: https://news.usc.edu/151694/polio-vaccine-breakthrough-brings-researchers-closer-to-eliminating-disease-worldwide/ "By removing moisture through freeze-drying, researchers have created temperature-stable vaccines for measles, typhoid and meningococcal disease. But scientists haven’t been able to make a polio vaccine that retains potency through freeze-drying and rehydration. Shin and his colleagues used two lab techniques — liquid chromatography and high-throughput screening — that allowed them to analyze a high volume of ingredients and formulations until they found one that worked. Jung’s hope is that a foundation or company will take over the project to pay for human studies and bring the injectable vaccine onto the market." So I'd like to pick your brain, if you allow me: do you consider it to be a brea...

A year since TechNet met.. news of 'scale-up' ?

So, where are we now?

More than a year has passed since the last TechNet-21 meeting! We have a year ahead of us before the next meeting!

As time races by, I feel the need to know more about progress that is being made with the many new initiatives that were described by countries and organisations towards scaling up for maximum impact in the shortest time.

Presentations in 2017 focused on demonstrations and pilot projects designed to advance the science of cold chain technologies, monitoring and evaluation techniques. Compared to the flourish of innovations reported from most regions, the process of scale-up to national implementation and evolution of global policy seems slow. In the face of expanding demand to introduce more vaccines and to extend immunization services, we need to hear about scale-up and widespred adoption of the most robust and successful iniatives reported in the TechNet-21 sessions in Portugal last October.

UNICEF/WHO guidance on Decommissioning and safe disposal of CCE now available in ARABIC and RUSSIAN

Dear TechNet-21 community, Further to the publication of the English and French versions of the Decommissioning and safe disposal of cold chain equipment guidance earlier this year (available here https://bit.ly/2xTLDYa), we are glad to share with you that the Arabic and Russian versions of the document are now available in the TechNet-21 Resource Library. To access these documents, please click on the following links:1. For the Arabic version:  https://www.technet-21.org/library/explore/cold-chain-equipment/5041-decommissioning-and-safe-disposal-of-cold-chain-equipment-arabic2. For the Russian version: https://www.technet-21.org/library/explore/cold-chain-equipment/5042-decommissioning-and-safe-disposal-of-cold-chain-equipment-russian On behalf of UNICEF and WHO, I wish you an insightful reading and look forward to interesting and fruitful discussions with the TechNet-21 community! Michelle Seidel, Cold Chain Specialist - Immunization Supply Chain, UNICEF Programme Division (UN ...