From 24-30 April 2016, countries in the African Region commemorated the 6th African Vaccination Week (AVW).The goal of AVW is to strengthen immunization programmes in the African Region by raising awareness on the need and right of...

Background Measles vaccination campaigns targeting children aged 9–59 months are conducted every three years in Guinea-Bissau. Studies have demonstrated beneficial non-specific effects of measles vaccine. We compared mortality one year after...

Background Significant progress has been made to increase access to vaccines in Africa since the 1974 launch of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). Successes include the introduction of several new vaccines across the continent and...

There is now clear evidence that the simplistic conventional model of immunization is invalid [1]. We can no longer assume that a vaccine acts independently of other vaccines, or that it influences only infections caused by the target disease....

Fragile states are home to a sixth of the world\'s population, and their populations are particularly vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks. Timely surveillance and control are essential to minimise the impact of these outbreaks, but little...

Vaccines may have non-specific effects. An observational study from Guinea-Bissau suggested that oral polio vaccine at birth (OPV0) provided with Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine was associated with down-regulation of the immune response to...

In 2008, the GAVI Alliance funded the introduction of new vaccines (including pentavalent diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis [DTP] plus hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b antigens) in Guinea-Bissau. The introduction was accompanied by increased...

This report highlights the achievements made in expanding access to vaccines in Africa and discusses some of the remaining challenges to achieving universal access to vaccines. The timing of this report coincides with the halfway point of the...

Studies from low-income countries indicate that co-administration of inactivated diphtheria–tetanus–pertussis (DTP) vaccine and live attenuated measles vaccine (MV) is associated with increased mortality compared with receiving MV only....